The Parting Glass
by StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: Let's get something straight before we begin: almost everything you have ever heard about the missing Count of Anvil is a lie. Most likely you believe I spent the final decade of the Third Era shacked up with a mistress wherever it is that faithless Colovian men go to hide from their heartbroken Colovian wives, but the truth is rarely that simple. This story is the truth. Sort of.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Please note that the following story contains adult themes, including sexual content, non-consensual themes (which at times includes briefly referenced threats towards minors), consensual underage sex (brief and non-explicit), alcoholism, depression and pregnancy loss. Oh, and swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.**

 **The title is taken from a traditional song (the lyrics of which, by the way, are well out of copyright), which I have co-opted as a Nibenese drinking song, because I can't write lyrics worth a damn.**

 **Any and all feedback is hugely appreciated. I particularly welcome constructive criticism, especially if you have any advice to give on ES lore and how to deepen how I've presented it here. I aspire to being a lore buff, but I'm not there yet.**

 **Huge thanks go to Tafferling and ZadArchie for betaing.**

* * *

 **The Parting Glass**

 **Part One**

 **The Rats of Bravil**

" _All the money that e'er I had,_

 _I spent it in good company._

 _And all the harm ever I done,_

 _Alas! it was to none but me,_

 _And all I have done for the want of wit,_

 _To memory now I can't recall,_

 _So fill to me the parting glass,_

 _Good night and joy be with you all."_

– The Parting Glass

 **Chapter One**

 _'The Gray Fox_

 _Wanted for theft, embezzlement, forgery, pickpocketing, counterfeiting, burglary, conspiracy to commit theft, grand larceny, tax evasion, slander, fraud, perfidy and impertinence._

 _Description: wears a gray cloak that conceals his appearance. Presumed male and Colovian. Height between 5 and 6 feet. Normal weight. Hair and eye color unknown._

 _Any citizen with information should contact the Imperial Watch.'_

 _-Wanted poster, circa 3E 433_

Let's get something straight before we begin: almost everything you have ever heard about me is a lie.

Most likely you believe I spent the final decade of the third era shacked up with a mistress and a litter of children in Chorrol or Cheydinhal or wherever it is that faithless Colovian husbands go to hide from their heartbroken Colovian wives.

Some tales are kinder though. You may have heard that I was bewitched. Or that in a moment of fuckwittery I disguised myself as an arena combatant and wound up bleeding out my last into the sand in some baffling urge to prove my martial prowess.

Or perhaps you've heard the stories that seek to explain how a bastard with noble parentage so obscure it might almost be deliberate, could have come to marry into the Umbranox family, one of the most powerful lineages on the Gold Coast.

(A small matter that I was not noble-born, bastard or otherwise, and nor was I Colovian. Until I was eighteen I spoke with a Nibenese accent so broad you could have driven a carriage down it.)

And then there are the other tales, the legends that talk not of Corvus Umbranox, the feckless, dissolute Count of Anvil, but of another man entirely. One who is immortal, shrouded in shadows and secrets. Most of those are lies too. Legends usually are.

Not one of the tales that seeks to explain my mysterious disappearance comes close to the actual truth: that until the very same year in which another notable bastard (one much more heroic than me) sacrificed his life to save all of Tamriel from a daedric invasion, Corvus Umbranox and the Gray Fox were one and the same.

You don't believe me.

 _But Corvus_ , you say, since apparently you are the sort of idiot who is in the habit of talking to the written word as if it were somehow sentient and able to understand you, _the Gray Fox is still out there! He leads the Thieves' Guild even now, yet you are Count of Anvil!_

(Unless I'm dead by the time you're reading this. Or perhaps my blessed lady wife has finally come to her senses and cast me off. I wouldn't blame her if she has).

Well, dear reader, that's rather the point of a cowl. Especially that cowl, damn it to Oblivion. There has not been one Fox, but many, and each one a victim. How many, I am still trying to ascertain, but I have been able to identify at least thirty names. It is a slow process, and often painful; even with the curse broken the magic still lingers, clouding the mind and the memories. It takes concentration to break through, to pick apart the threads and unravel the truth of what happened, the unbroken chain of forgotten souls that leads through the centuries from Emer Dareloth to me.

This work leaves me with splintering headaches, although I wonder sometimes if it is not the magic but the strain of focusing my failing eyes. Either way on a bad day it leaves me feeling like a pickaxe has been wedged in my skull, and the bad days are growing more frequent. Still, it's a small price to pay for my family and my freedom, and one I would have paid a thousand times over. It was worth it to escape from the shadows, to find my way home again.

But I digress.

Some of the more lurid tales about the Gray Fox would have you believe I was born in pitch darkness when the moons and the stars were veiled with clouds. My mother was a living shadow, given form in the total darkness. When the sky cleared and the moons reappeared in the night sky, she broke apart on the moonlight, and I was left an orphan. Nocturnal took pity on me and sent a wolf to nurse me and ravens to bring me scraps of food. And as I grew, I learned the tricks of the shadows: how to shrink myself to the size of a mouse, or turn myself invisible; how to turn myself into mist to seep through the cracks in ill-fitting window panes.

The reality is far more prosaic. My mother was flesh and blood. Or she was when I was born, at least. My earliest years are still something of a mystery, and I doubt I will ever know the truth of what happened when I was an infant: the horrors I must have witnessed are safely locked away in my skull, if I ever remembered them at all. One thing this whole mess has taught me is that the mind, and in particular, memories, can play tricks on the unwary.

What I do know for certain is that on or around the year 394 in the third era a ragged little five year old boy came into the care of a Breton woman who ran an ill-reputed wayside inn on a poorly maintained road between Skingrad and Bravil. Don't bother looking for the inn. It's long since been reduced to ashes, and good riddance. It sold little but watered down ale and flavourless stew, its beds crawled with lice and its proprietress had a face as sour as the ale she sold. Even I wouldn't have drunk there, and the gods themselves will tell you that I am not a fussy man when it comes to inns.

Her name was Masha Dermaine.

She claimed to be my aunt, but I now know this is untrue. Even then I had my suspicions. There are few sources of labour quite so cheap as an unwanted child, particularly if you're prepared to keep them hungry and living in squalor.

She was a changeable creature, cruel and capricious when sober, maudlin and sentimental when drunk. When the inn was bustling, which was rare, she was at least kept busy. She was always happiest when she had people to flirt with, to relieve of the burden of their coin, and to ply with wine and the questionable virtue of either herself or her daughter.

So far I was young enough to have escaped that particular task about the inn, but I had seen the occasional speculative glance my way from a passing merchant and I suspected it wouldn't be long before I was expected to earn my keep warming the beds of those occasional travellers whose taste ran to boys. In many ways I was lucky that Masha took so little care of me; likely it was my filthy body and half-feral appearance that had kept me protected for so long. If she had taken more care to keep me clean and better clothed, the coin she could have earned from selling my tender arse would almost certainly have outweighed the amount spent many times over.

She always was a fool.

When things were quiet, Masha had little to do but sit and drink and try to figure out the source of all her sorrows, and invariably her attention would turn to the rat-faced little Imperial boy, the ungrateful little shit who did nothing to earn his keep.

Not that I can blame her too much, mind you, since as far back as I can remember I was robbing her blind at every opportunity. It's one of my earliest memories, the act of stealing, the realisation that if I snatched up an apple without being seen, then by all rights it belonged to me. The logic of the natural thief.

Just as well really: if I hadn't been such a thieving little fucker, I would have starved to death long before I ever reached my adulthood.

~o~O~o~

In my memories of my childhood it always seemed to be raining: a needle-sharp drizzle so fine it might be mist in the springtime, or raging storms in winter. This was that heavy summer rain that seemed intent on flattening everything in its path: trees, mountains, small foolish boys who happened to get caught in it. It reduced the ground around the inn to a muddy swamp and rendered the roads around the inn almost totally impassible.

Picture a small boy of thirteen who looks a good three years younger, sheltering from the downpour in the lee of the stable wall. The boy's sackcloth clothes are already soaked through, clinging to his shivering skinny frame, and he's up to the ankles in the mud. When dry, his calloused soles are black with dirt and tough as leather. His dark brown hair is so long he might almost be taken for a girl, if it wasn't so matted and tangled, and his features are pinched from hunger.

I didn't look like much back then.

I was trying to decide whether it was worth making a dash for the shelter of the inn, where a fire was burning, or if my aunt's ill-temper would render this unwise. I'd fled a beating that morning, spent most of the day skirting the edge of the forest, checking the traps repeatedly to see if I'd caught anything that might soften Masha's disposition towards me.

I hadn't, and it was only the rain and the thought of a shivering wet night spent in the damp stables that had forced me back. I was only putting off the beating; I wouldn't be able to escape it completely. At least if I went inside and got it over with I'd be in the warm, with a roaring fire and something to eat, and maybe Brandt would take pity on me and tell one of his stories.

Decision made, I tensed, ready to dash across the yard. Only then I felt a prickling sensation on the back of my neck. I went still, cast a darting glance towards the other end of the stables. Was there a shadow there, something that didn't quite fit? I drew back, darting out of sight behind the wall, and listened. And there, a faint splashing, the sucking squelch of someone nowhere near as stealthy as I was moving through the mud.

I whirled, moving swiftly around the side of the stable, hopped atop a barrel, and hauled myself up onto the roof, toes scrabbling for purchase on the sodden wood. With my weight spread across the slippery tiles, I peered over the edge, searching for the spy.

 _There._

A boy, about my age, as short as I was, but considerably better fed. Cursing softly under his breath as the mud sucked at his ill-fitting shoes. Edging around the side of the stables, trying to figure out where the fuck I'd vanished to, because he'd had me in his sights a moment ago, and now he'd lost me and that was usually a bad sign. He licked his lips, took another step, cast a cautious glance over his shoulder.

I crept to the very edge of the roof, and braced myself. Counted slowly to three before launching myself at his back. A blinding stab of pain as his elbow crunched into my nose, and as he tried to twist out from beneath me, I fought to pin him down with all my meagre weight. If he managed to get up, I was finished. He was stronger than me.

It was a wrestling match born of desperation, the two of us scrabbling in the mud, his fingers clawing at my face. I bit down on the meat of his palm, and he yelped. Aimed a vengeful knee at my balls. I flinched away, and he pressed the advantage, shoving me aside. As he rolled to his feet, I kicked out at his ankles, and he fell with a startled cry. I was on him then, swinging my bunched fist into his kidneys, and when he sprawled in the mud, I straddled him and hooked his arm up behind his back, my knee wedged between his shoulder blades.

The two of us were panting, soaked to the skin and filthy, but I was triumphant.

"Do you yield?" I demanded.

He wriggled, lifted his head enough to spit out a mouthful of mud. "You're a dirty fighter."

"Taught by the best. Are you going to yield or not?" I jerked his arm up, not quite enough to hurt but not far off.

"I yield, you arsehole. Now let me up before I drown in the fucking mud."

I let him go, sinking back on my haunches. He rolled up, and I snorted at the sight of him. His face was streaked with mud, and his hair was black with it. Not that I was much better. He wiped his face and grimaced.

"My da's going to fucking kill me," he said, then sighed. "Could've sworn I had you beat for a minute."

"You almost did," I admitted. "But you're right. I am a dirty fighter."

"And you nearly wrenched my arm off," he said, pushing his mud-soaked hair back from his face. The rain was already washing us both clean.

"Sorry." I stood up and held out my hand. His gaze dropped to it, then flickered craftily up to meet mine again. I could see the thoughts churning behind his eyes, as he considered jerking me back down for another wrestling match. But it was wet and cold, and he must have thought better of it since he flashed his teeth and let me pull him up.

"You can make it up to me," he said. "Talk to your pretty cousin for me."

"Grow some balls and talk to her yourself," I said, and shoulder-barged him so hard he slammed into the side of the stable.

"Ow! You fucking arsehole!" He swiped at me as I scrambled away, laughed at him as he slipped in the mud as he came after me, and spat some curses at each other that we'd learned from Brandt.

"Take your shoes off," I suggested. "You'd move quieter without them."

"My feet ain't made of leather like yours."

"Yeah, because you wear shoes, you stupid cunt."

"Arsehole."

"Whoremonger."

"I fucking wish." This last Nate said so fervently I laughed. Our scrap apparently over, we circled around the back of the stables and sank down in a spot beneath the eaves. "She ever talk about me?" he asked.

"You mean my aunt?"

He shoved me lightly. "Mia. Idiot. Does she ever, you know, mention me?"

"Not really. But you know what she's like. She doesn't really talk about anything much."

He twisted his lips, pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I'm going to marry her," he said, with confidence. "And then we'll get the fuck out of this shithole. We'll have a place in the Imperial City. Or somewhere nice, like Anvil. Maybe even Bruma."

"You'll freeze your bollocks off in Bruma," I said.

"Nah." A flash of that wicked grin again. "'Cause I'd have your cousin to keep me warm."

"I don't think she'd like you being a whoremonger," I said, resting the back of my head against the side of the stable. I was thinking about Mia. Wondering how it would be if she married Nate, if they'd let me tag along. Maybe the two of them would find an inn to run somewhere and I could work there. Not a shithole like this, but on one of the busier roads or even in one of the towns. At least Mia could be happy then; he'd take care of her.

"I'd give it up for her." He sighed. "I'd give _anything_ up for her. Dibella's tits, I'm freezing. Might as well be in fucking Bruma."

"Your fault," I retorted. "You could've just said hello instead of trying to sneak up on me. What've you got for me anyway?"

He'd brought me a brace of coneys, stashed inside the stables to keep the free of the rain while he'd tried unsuccessfully to sneak up on me. I ran my hand over the velvet-soft fur, and dug out his payment from where I'd stashed it behind a bale of hay. A couple of bottles of ale and one of mead which I'd stolen from the inn. Nate, my first ever fence. He grinned and stashed them in his pack, slipped it back behind the hay.

"What are you doing? Aren't you taking them?"

"In a minute," he said, pushing himself up. "I'm going to say hello to Mia first."

I glanced over my shoulder at the inn. "If my aunt sees you..."

"She won't. I'm getting better at hiding. Learned from the best, you shitting arsehole. C'mon, you owe me. My arm still hurts and I almost drowned."

 _Shit._ "All right. But don't let her see you. She's thick as pigshit, but it don't mean she's not going to figure things out eventually. She's already starting to notice things going missing."

We crossed the yard, the coneys slung over my shoulder. I left Nate hunkered by the crumbling wall, but as I hopped over, I hesitated, glancing along the road. It was overcast and gloomy, the far off hills shrouded with the mist of distant rain. I shivered, feeling as if I was being watched, as if something was approaching the inn, drawing closer along that lonely road.

"Jack?" Nate was frowning at me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Hold on." I hopped over the wall and slipped to the inn, peered cautiously through the door. But there was just Mia behind the bar and Brandt sitting by the fire, staring gloomily into the flames. I beckoned Nate, heard him grunt as he climbed over the wall.

Inside, Mia shot me a reproving look, then her gaze flitted over my shoulder as Nate slipped inside after me, combing his fingers through his sodden hair.

"Hello Mia," he said, his voice soft. For all his bravado, he was shyer than a fawn.

"What in Oblivion happened to you two?" she said, in disbelief, her gaze shifting between the two of us.

I held up the brace of coneys. "I caught some rabbits," I announced, and she gave me a look that told me she knew this was utter bullshit. "Where's my aunt?"

"Upstairs," she said. "But she's in a right mood, Jack. What've you done now?"

"Why do you always assume it's something I've done? Not like she needs a reason to be angry with me."

"Yeah," she said. "But to be fair it is usually because you're a thieving little shit."

Nate edged further into the room behind me, flushing bright red as Mia took the coneys from me and vanished into the kitchen. When she was gone, I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow. In return he punched my shoulder. And by the fire Brandt quietly rolled his eyes upwards, and shook his head wearily at the pair of us.

"Fucker," Nate said, the word turning into a cough as Mia returned. I nudged Nate, and then, when he still didn't move, I shoved him much less gently towards the bar. His hip banged against a table, and he gave a grunt of surprise and pain. I regretted what I'd done the moment Mia lifted her gaze. Her eyes were filled not with amusement but pain and weariness. Nate opened his mouth to say something, and at the look of dread on Mia's face I had to look away. Even Nate thought better of whatever it was he'd been about to say and stared down at his feet, flushing scarlet.

~o~O~o~

It was Brandt who rescued us.

He'd been a bard in his youth and claimed that he used to sing so sweetly he could charm apart even the most tightly clamped pair of thighs. His voice was cracked and hoarse now, but he could still carry a song, his voice fine enough and strong enough to keep the whole inn enraptured. He'd used to play the lute too, he said, until a thane in Riften had taken offence to a lay he'd written, and shattered every one of his fingers.

These days he rarely sang unless he was drunk, but stories were another matter. It took little persuading and even less ale for him to lapse into one of his many tales, and he was a natural storyteller, with a seemingly endless supply of stories from every corner of Tamriel, most of which were filled with sex and violence like all the best tales told to children.

Outside the rain had grown heavier. It struck in sheets against the inn's windows, forming labyrinthine patterns against the fogged up glass. Throughout the inn, upturned bowls had been left to catch the drips, like offerings to the gods, and there was a lingering smell of damp in the air.

Or there should have been.

Instead, the inn was filled with the keen sharp scent of frost. The steam rising from my sodden clothes was my breath fogging in the freezing air, the sound of the crackling fire my fur-lined boots crunching in virgin snow. And I was no longer a skinny undernourished boy of thirteen, but a member of Ysgramor's Companions, broad-chested and golden-haired with a war-hammer strapped to my back.

Brandt's voice wove a spell around me so powerful that if I closed my eyes I could feel the snowflakes striking against my frozen skin like needles, the soft kiss of the wolf-skin cloak against my jaw, the scream of the muscles in my thighs as I stayed my spill down the snowy slope. Below me in the valley the ice was as clear as glass, and beneath that ice the ghosts of an army of the dead, who had been driven into the lake centuries ago and left to drown, awaited me.

"The warrior lifted his boot," Brandt said, "and took his first step out onto the frozen lake. And beneath the glassy surface, the spirits followed, nails scratching against the underside of the ice."

"How many were there?" Mia asked.

Brandt grinned. In the firelight his teeth looked very sharp and white, and a glittering danger in his eyes. "Their number was countless, lass. So many the lake was crowded with their spirits, and the bottom a tangle of bones and skulls ten feet deep."

"What happened to the Companion?" I asked, my mouth dry. I already knew the answer, already knew what was coming, but I wanted to hear him tell it.

"Ah." Brandt winked. I shifted impatiently as he took another long swig of ale, the bottle gripped awkwardly between his two hands, cradled between his palms. He set it down, wiped his mouth on the liver-spotted back of his hand. "Nothing at first. The ice held, at least until he was out there in the very centre of the lake. He knelt, and beneath the ice the spirits swarmed and writhed. There's nothing hungrier than the dead. It's why necromancers are such benighted fools for fucking about with matters they don't understand. You think you've gone hungry from time to time, lad?"

I grimaced. Only Brandt's tale could distract me from my thoughts of the hunk of bread and sliver of cheese I'd swiped from the kitchen that morning and hidden away in my little spot in the stables. It was that which had earned me the beating. "Well-"

"You've no clue, boy. The dead are _hollow_. Naught but empty ravening pits that would suck the marrow from a man's still living bones if they had the chance. The dead do nothing but hunger, and for more than food. They hunger for life itself, and these dead, trapped for centuries beneath their ice, were hungrier than most.

"The Companion could hear them whispering now, tens of thousands of voices, each barely above a whisper. And this warrior was like any other. Perhaps a little braver than most, and certainly more foolish, or he would not have gone to that place where the drowned army hungered in its frozen tomb-"

He paused to take another swig of ale. I exchanged an impatient glance with Nate, but said nothing. I knew from long experience that hurrying Brandt when he was in the midst of a story would only cause him to drag the tale out longer. Better to stay silent, as painful and frustrating as it could be. But as he set the bottle down, his awkward hands bumped against it, and it toppled over, foaming beer spilling over the wood. He swore, making a grab for it, and Mia threw herself forward before he could cause more chaos. She righted the bottle, saving most of the ale, smiled weakly as Brandt thanked her.

"You're very welcome," she said, her voice very quiet.

Brandt's gaze lingered sadly on her a few moments longer, before he dropped them back to the table and his spilled ale. His shoulders sagged and whatever spell he had woven around us had lost some of its lustre. I stared at his useless misshapen fingers, the red swollen knuckles, and shivered that someone could be so cruel to destroy a man's livelihood in such a way.

"Brandt?" I whispered so quietly I wasn't sure if he had heard me. He moved, a slight tightening of his shoulders, his head crowned with shaggy greying hair tilted in my direction, but he didn't open his eyes. He wasn't going to finish the story, I thought, and it shouldn't have mattered because I'd heard it so many times before I probably could have recited it myself from memory.

But I was a boy. And I was selfish.

A story left unfinished is a terrible thing. It's like a ghost not yet put to rest; it haunts both reader and listener until the tale is brought to an end. Unfinished tales have teeth, and this unfinished tale would gnaw at me.

"Jack," Mia whispered, as I slipped to my feet. "Let him be."

"But I want him to finish the story," I said, reaching out to touch Brandt's shoulder.

His eyes snapped open, and I swear in that moment they were black. A trick of the light of course, but it was enough to make me flinch away.

" _Run_." His voice was a growl, and it wrapped around my throat like a fist. " _They're coming for you, boy._ "

His twisted fingers clamped around my wrist. I could smell the stale alcohol seeping through his pores, and useless though his hands should have been he was strong enough to pull me closer as if to whisper something in my ear.

And I knew that whatever he had to tell me was something I did not want to know.

I jerked away. If his tale of the souls of dead men drowned in a river had filled me with a pleasing thrill of fear, this fear was all cold and sharp edges, a knife's edge that cut deep. There was nothing pleasant about this: nothing but death and emptiness and terror. I stumbled away and his head swivelled, eyes searching for me blindly.

Mia knelt beside me, her cheeks wet with tears. "What happened?" she whispered, and I pressed my hand over her mouth. Nate cowered in the corner, his eyes wide. The flames flared up as a log cracked in the grate, and the rain redoubled its efforts against the window.

Brandt made a noise, a sort of sobbing cough, and sank back in his seat. The darkness in his eyes had gone and Mia sagged against me. Brandt's were cheeks wet with tears, and he stared at we, bewildered. He looked even older now, and weaker, as if he was finally starting to lose his grip on his mind and memories. "What happened?" he asked, a tremble in his voice.

"You were dreaming," I lied, and his gaze shifted to me.

"Dreaming," he repeated, as if that made no sense.

"Yeah," I said, and Mia's hand tightened in mine. "You must've-"

The air seethed, so thick that I could hardly breathe. My vision sharpened, tunnelling away, and everything around me seemed suddenly very distant.

We were being watched.

Two figures stood in the doorway of the inn, a man and a woman, both in hooded cloaks which dripped water on the rushes. Mia's hand tightened on my own as the man shook his hood back. He was Imperial, his black hair worn in a military close-crop. It took her a moment or two for Mia to recover her composure and smooth her hands down over her skirt. "Welcome. Please, come in and make yourselves comfortable. Is there anything you need?"

I leaned against the table, crossing my arms in an effort to hide my fear. The man's eyes flitted to me, lingered on my face as he shrugged off his cloak. Beneath he was richly dressed in a green silk doublet, but he wore a short sword belted at his waist, and there was a stillness to his movements that made the back of my neck prickle with warning.

 _They're coming for you, boy._

"A room for the night," he said, shortly. "We've travelled a long way."

 _Should have travelled further_ , I thought, but the thought seemed very distant. It hardly seemed to belong to me at all.

"Of course, sir. I'll fetch my mother down." She glanced at me, meaningfully. "A drink for our guests, Jack."

Gods, I didn't want to move. As if by moving I might draw attention to myself. I tightened my arms across my chest, balled up my hands into fists and pressed them into my armpits.

As Mia vanished into the upper levels of the inn, Brandt placed his hand on my shoulder, sending a stab of agony across my back. I drew in a sharp breath, and the man's gaze jerked towards me, quick as a snake's. Something about the look in his eyes as he studied me made me think of a merchant who'd once watched me with interest, a greedy look that made me feel like the clothes were being stripped from my body.

Now I felt like my skin had been flayed away as well as my clothes, that I was nothing but bones and muscle and raw meat laid bare before him. His lip curled in contempt as the woman stepped past him.

Brandt's hand rested on my arm, steadying me. He murmured something I didn't catch, some softly muttered oath, and when the woman beckoned me with a crook of her slender fingers and I took a step towards her on shaking legs, unable and unwilling to refuse her summons, he clung onto my arm as if he wished to hold me back. But he was an old man and his strength had gone, and I shook him off with ease, my gaze fixed on the woman's face.

She was beautiful, skin like marble, and slanted hazel eyes. Imperial, but her skin was so pale she might have had Nord blood. Her hand cupped my chin, her touch cold and not at all gentle. Her fingers bit into my jaw as she tilted my head, bringing my gaze to meet hers. She regarded me for a long moment while the man snorted softly, a cruel mocking sound.

"What's your name, boy?" she asked, her voice soft.

"They call me Jackdaw, my lady."

"'Jackdaw.'" And, gods, the way her lips parted when she repeated my name. Her tongue flickered out as if she was tasting the sound of it, tasting me. Her eyes hooded, and I felt like a mouse caught in the jaws of a snake. The man leaned against the wall, his arms folded. Everyone was watching me, and I was unable to look at anything but this woman.

"Like the bird," I said.

"You're a handsome one beneath the grime," she said. "You'll break plenty of hearts when you're older, I'm sure."

"I break plenty of hearts _now_."

She laughed, and I smiled, inwardly cringing. Something about her touch set my skin to crawling. And yet part of me wanted her never to let go. She leaned closer, her wet hood brushing against my cheek. A trickle of freezing water ran down my neck, beneath my shirt, as cold as her touch. I imagined her fingers following it, and the thought didn't feel like my own. I shuddered as she leaned closer still. Her touch might be cold, but her breath was hot.

"Turn around," she whispered.

I didn't want to. Gods, I didn't want to. But I couldn't disobey.

Numb, I turned. Saw Brandt watching me, his expression grim. And then her fingers trailed down the crown of my head to part my hair at the nape of my neck. She bunched my shirt up, drawing the fabric up to bare my back to her sight. I closed my eyes, trembling, because I couldn't bear the way Brandt was staring at me. In that moment, I wished I was invisible, that I could melt into the shadows and vanish. Her fingers traced my back, the fresh welts lying across older scar tissue, the marks left on my skin by countless whippings. Her breathing quickened as if the sight excited her, and my gut squirmed with fear and shame. But a numbing sensation was spreading first through the stinging wounds on my back, and then through me, filling me with lassitude.

None of it mattered.

She released me abruptly, and shoved me away. I stumbled down the steps, collapsed against a table, my back still bared. The world spiralled around me, as if I was drunk. I found myself staring into the flames, the heat of them scorching my cheeks. And at the very edge of my hearing, past the sound of my blood rushing in my ears, Brandt was talking to me. I would have fled if I could move, but I felt like a corpse, flayed and laid bare for them to examine.

"Jack?" Brandt said.

"I'm fine," I whispered. "I'm fine, I just..." My voice shaky, weak. I trailed off, my tongue thick and useless in my mouth. I lifted my head, realised both the woman and the man had gone. Had I imagined them? Perhaps they'd never existed at all. I glanced at Brandt. "Did you... Did you see her?"

"I saw her." There was darkness in his eyes. "Stay away from that one, boy."

"No, but..." I didn't even know what I was going to say. Brandt gently tugged down my shirt, his gaze averted, and I flinched away. Closed my eyes at a sharp stab of shameful memory, A hitch in the woman's breathing, a soft throaty moan in the back of her throat. A stab of hunger in my gut that I didn't understand and my cheeks burned.

I felt sick. I shoved myself away from Brandt, past Mia and Nate who were huddled together by the bar and stumbled back outside into the rain.

I fled to the stables, scrambled up the ladder into the hayloft, curled up in a ball behind a bale of hay, enveloped by the stale musty smell of horses and mildew and rot.

And there I waited until my skittering heart finally began to slow, until I felt like I could my heart skittering in my chest, and only when I was certain I had not been followed, did I sit up and prise up the loose board where I kept all my treasures.

It wasn't much. A small coin-purse half-filled with clipped Septims and tarnished coppers. A tarnished copper necklace, with several stones missing from their settings. A carved ivory comb with missing teeth I'd found behind a dresser in the inn. A pitiful collection, really, and I ignored it all for my most precious possession, a gold locket on a delicate chain which slipped through my fingers like water. My mouth dry, my numbed frozen fingers found the catch.

The locket sprang open. Inside it held the portrait of a woman, her features very fine and pale, the faintest blush of roses on her cheeks. Long slender fingers pressed against her chest, resting above her heart, and her slanting hazel eyes were turned away, staring out of the edge of the portrait as if something had captured her attention.

And it was _her_. The woman in the inn, who had cupped my chin with fingers as cold as a corpse's, and moaned with helpless hungry pleasure at the sight of my scarred skin.

My mother.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: From now on expect chapters to be posted on a weekly basis. All comments are extremely appreciated, and I value constructive criticism.**

 **Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

' _The moons and stars were hidden from sight, making that particular quiet night especially dark. The town guard had to carry torches to make their rounds; but the man who came to call at my chapel carried no light with him. I came to learn that Movarth Piquine could see in the dark almost as well as the light — an excellent talent, considering his interests were exclusively nocturnal.'_

– _Immortal Blood_ , by Anonymous

I snapped the locket closed and clenched my fist around it. My heartbeat echoed the sound of the rain. She'd come for me. My mother, whom I'd thought for years was dead, had come for me.

I remembered little of her, except for the scraps of memory I clung to for comfort: a woman who rocked me when I cried, who kissed my forehead when I fell and scraped my knee, who sang me to sleep while my fingers clutched at her dress. Even if I couldn't picture her face, couldn't even say for sure whether she was the woman pictured in the locket, I remembered her and she had _come for me_.

I pressed my knuckles against my mouth and wondered. Then I pushed all my treasures back into their hiding place. The locket I replaced last and most reluctantly, my heart aching.

 _Don't be a damn fool._

My skin still itched from the memory of the touch of her hand and my wounds were beginning to sting once more, painful enough to remind me of the bitter truth. There had been nothing but malice in her eyes and those of the watching man. Whatever the woman in the inn might be, she was no more my mother than Masha was.

I replaced the board, slipped from the stables, and crept to the back of the inn, which was screened from view by an ash tree. And there I set my feet against the plaster and was up in seconds to a narrow ledge beside the gabled window, where I clung to the wall like the fat-bellied spider that wove its web in the shadow of the eaves.

If you happen to be a questioning sort of soul – and I suspect you are – you may be starting to wonder why a woman like Masha would take in a little shit as idle and objectionable as me. I'm afraid to say this is one of the reasons she tolerated me.

Even the greenest travellers quickly learn not to trust the questions of an over-curious innkeeper. Those who take too long to learn this lesson often find their journeys cut short by an inopportune knife-thrust on a lonely road. But details not shared with the innkeeper might be spilled when they thought themselves alone in their room, and it was with these little crumbs of information that a sparrow like me might earn his keep.

A mage returning to his guild chapter with a priceless Ayleid artifact. A merchant choosing to take the northern road to join the Red Ring Road rather than heading west to Skingrad as he had claimed.

These and more I reported to Masha, sickeningly eager to please, desperate to save myself a beating, and this guilt I will bear on my conscience for the rest of my life. I've done many terrible things which shame me deeply, but this is one of the worst. I can claim that I was a child who did not understand what he was doing, but while I might not be a murderer, I _am_ a liar. Especially to myself.

I knew.

In my heart I knew, and I will never forgive myself for those travellers who must have met their unsuspecting end on those quiet country roads. It may as well have been my hand that slid the dagger between their ribs.

The ledge had scarcely enough room to turn around, but there was a handhold where I could wedge my fingers to keep myself from toppling off, and the overhanging roof shielded me from the worst of the rain. The sound of the rain drowned out the voices inside, so I had to press my ear right up to the rotting wood of the window to hear, then had to resist the temptation to jerk back as the man passed the window with a flash of green silk.

"He's a scrawny little thing," he said. There was a lazy quality to his voice, his words drawled and sneering. "Are you sure..."

"I'm quite certain. It's him."

My skin was already prickling with goosebumps from the cold, but it prickled even further at the sound of the woman speaking. I pressed back against the wall, with a shudder of fear.

"He has the same look about the eyes," she continued. "It's almost like looking in a mirror."

The man grunted. "If you ask me, he looks too young. He can't be older than ten. What's he supposed to be, fifteen?"

"Thirteen. But it's him. That whore who runs this place has been starving him." There was no pity to her words, only a mocking amusement that made my skin creep. "Poor little runt."

The man leaned against the window. I could see his profile, and if he happened to glance around he would have seen me. "He's just a boy."

The woman joined him, her face, her glittering eyes turned up to his. She chuckled, did something with her hand, sliding it down in a way that made him catch his breath. "And since when have you been so tender-hearted?"

"I always did have a sentimental streak."

"I want the boy. He's mine. She's hid him from me for too long, that clever sneaking little bitch. I want him."

"And now you have him."

"Mmm." She laughed and he bent to kiss her. Her lips first, and then the white sweep of her neck as he tugged at the laces of her dress. "Jorus, I'm hungry."

He gave a low throaty chuckle. "You're always hungry, Lyria. Just a little longer, my love–" He broke off, lifting his head at a knock at the door. "Or perhaps not. It seems the quality of service in this midden is considerably better than I had anticipated."

She laughed, and as he moved towards the door, turned and peer out into the rain. No breath fogged the glass. I froze, certain that if I moved, made even the slightest twitch of a finger, she would see me.

It was Masha at the door. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft and uncertain, the shrill, resentful note gone, and I realised with a shiver that she was afraid. "I hope the room is to your satisfaction. If you're hungry, my daughter has prepared a venison stew. Or there's rabbit too, if you would prefer that? I could roast it, serve it with some–"

"I have no appetite for stew. Or for rabbit." Lyria turned around. "But I am hungry."

Inside I heard the click of the door closing, the man's voice saying, "Must you play with your food _every_ time?"

A sharp intake of breath from Masha. She might be stupid, but she wasn't a total fool. "What are you?"

"She told you." The man's voice. "She's hungry."

 _A vampire_ , I thought. Stark fear flooded me and my grip on the ledge tightened as my balance wavered. It fit: the terror and the hot, sick hunger I'd felt when she'd touched me, when she'd looked upon me with those cold mocking eyes. My mother was a vampire.

Inside there was a flurry of hurried footsteps. "Uh uh," Jorus said, his voice mocking. "Leaving so soon?"

"Let me out." And beneath the fear in Masha's voice, an edge of threat.

Lyria laughed, and moved away from the window. "Why, the cat has claws."

"Sharper than any Khajiit's," Masha said. "I know what you are, bitch."

"Well, there goes the element of surprise." The sound of a scuffle, a sudden cry of pain from Masha, and over it all the woman's high laugh. Terrified as I was, I had to see. Moving as carefully as I could, I shifted on the narrow ledge to peer through the window, nails scratching at the wood for purchase. The muscles in my arms strained with the effort of keeping myself from falling.

In the room, the man stood by the door, his languid posture unchanged. And Masha was shaking with terror and pain in the middle of the room. Lyria stood behind her, the light from the lantern making her crimson dress shimmer. Her hair looked like burnished copper. She was the most beautiful and terrible thing I've ever seen, then or since. Her hands gripped Masha's head by the temples, her lips pressing against Masha's neck. They almost looked like lovers.

"Thank you, by the by, for taking care of the boy for me," she murmured. Her delicate fingers trailed down Masha's throat. "If I may, though, a word of advice, not that it will do you much good now: you should have slit the little bastard's throat and left him rotting in a ditch. It would have been better in the long run. Ah well. Too late now."

Her voice lowered to a throaty breathless growl, the wordless snarl of an animal. I couldn't see what she did – a fall of hair concealed it from view – but Masha began to scream. Her knees buckled, and the woman caught her, held her up, wrapped an arm around her chest with one arm, and wrenched her head to the side with the other. Jorus leant forward, no longer languid, but intent, his eyes shining as if this was the most exciting thing he had ever witnessed. As Masha fought, trying to wrench away, the air tightened around me. My ears popped in a sudden rush of pressure, and Masha's scream changed pitch, filling with fury.

If you've ever felt magic worked up close, then I'm sure you know the feeling. How it gathers in your chest like a clenched fist, calling to the magicka you may or may not carry in your own blood, until every inch of your skin prickles, until your hair stands on end. It's like the moment of spending. The taste of lightning in the air before the onset of a storm.

Blood calls to blood and magic calls to magic, and even I, who had scarcely a magical bone in my body, could feel it thrilling through me, making the palms of my hands tingle and prickle and sting. From inside the room there was another scream, not from Masha this time, but from Lyria. Masha had twisted around, was reaching backwards to grab at Lyria's face, and her arms were awash with crackling flames up to her elbows.

Lyria wrenched away, stumbling back a few steps. Her cheeks were blackened and charred, and underneath raw red flesh gleamed wetly. Her hand darted up, touched her cheek lightly, her eyes red with rage. "What's that saying?" she hissed. "Fight fire with fire?"

The room flooded with flames. They surged outwards like a wave and struck the window, shattering the glass and I was flung backwards. There was an instant when the flames enveloped me in searing heat, and then nothing but the shrouded sky overhead, the sudden cool kiss of the rain, and the arms-wheeling exhilaration of free-fall.

At least until I slammed into the ground. Threw up my arms to shield my face from the rain of shattered glass that showered around me.

Someone was screaming, a ragged wrenching sound... And then they weren't screaming any more.

And it was that silence, above the sound of the rain and the crackling inferno, that brought me back to my wits. I pushed myself to my feet, slipping and staggering in the mud. As I approached the inn, the door burst open, nearly knocking me off my feet. Nate and Mia slammed into me, eyes wide with terror, clinging to each other. Mia shrieked, and Brandt tried to shove her into my arms. But it was Nate she clung onto, and they fled past me, running towards the treeline.

I stood frozen, staring at Brandt. His eyes were gleaming, not with terror but with a savage joy I'd never seen before.

"The three of you _run_ ," he ordered. "As fast as you can."

From inside the inn I heard the sound of joyous laughter. It was a terrible sound. "What happened to my aunt?" I whispered.

Brandt glared at me. Strange how with the crackling flames behind him he looked larger somehow, no longer a shrunken old man, but stockier, more roughly hewn. His shoulders seemed broader, more hunched, his eyes burning with an amber light. "If you don't want to find out," he growled, "I suggest you do as I say."

I staggered away a step, but I'd never been one to listen to my elders and betters, and I liked Brandt. "Come with us."

He shook his head. "I'm an old man, boy. I'm tired and I've been hiding for too damned long." He reached out, tousled my wet hair. "Now fuck off."

"But–"

" _Go!_ "

He bellowed the word at me, and it was filled with rage and fury. Not the Nord battle cry I'd imagined and longed to hear, but there was power enough in his voice to sent panic flooding through me. It was a howl hot with blood and bone, a sound that spoke of slaughter and corpses slain on the snow. A sound I was certain could not be made by someone entirely human.

I fled.

Ahead of me, Nate and Mia were running for the edge of the forest. I sprinted after them, but a treacherous stone half-submerged in the mud twisted beneath my foot. My ankle wrenched with pain, and I stumbled, slammed painfully into the crumbling stone wall. A nail ripped free, and when I tried to drag myself back to my feet, my ankle would not hold.

In desperation, I half-threw, half-dragged myself over the wall, crumpled weeping in the mud on the other side. By now I was praying, but no god answered me. The Nine, damn them, only stared down at me with apathy in their hearts, if they heard me at all. I was going to die, I thought, or worse. Most likely worse. But at least Nate and Mia would be safe.

Sometimes I wonder if my problem isn't that I'm too damned optimistic. Because Nate and Mia weren't even remotely safe.

They'd almost reached the forest when Mia slipped in the mud, and he twisted around, reached down to haul her back to her feet.

The fireball came out of nowhere, enveloped her with living fire. Tendrils of crackling flames wreathed around her body. I could smell her burning, the stink of roasting pork, and to this day I can't abide that smell. The crackle of blackening skin, rendering fat. Enough to make my mouth water, and then fill me with lurching nausea.

Nate was screaming. And Mia's skin was blackening, peeling, flaking away, while she bucked and twisted. Even the pelting rain wasn't enough to extinguish the sorcerous flames.

I pressed myself back against the stone wall, pressed my hands over my mouth to stifle a moan of terror as Lyria moved past the wall, wreathed with wisps of mist as the rain evaporated before it struck her. The crackle of magic raised the hairs on my forearms. She stepped lightly around puddles, gently lifting her dress free of the mud. Nate stared at her, then down at Mia, writhing and screaming on the ground in agony. And then he fled.

 _I'd give up anything for her_ , he'd said. He'd lied.

And I did not blame him. Perhaps because I did exactly the same thing.

As the woman who was not my mother vanished into the woods after the fleeing boy, I went the other way. Limping on my twisted ankle, keeping low, following the line of the wall and the safety of the shadows. And once I'd reached the treeline, once I thought I was out of sight, I ran as far and as fast as I could.

I could hear Nate screaming in the distance, and it sounded far enough away that I threw myself between the twisting roots of a tree and clamped my hands over my ears. Even so I could hear him, howls of agony mingling with begging for mercy, how he'd do anything if she'd only please, _please_ , stop. And then there were no words at all, only screams, and then not even that.

By that time even the rain had stopped. There was only silence and my own frantic panting breath. And I waited, listening out for the sound of laughter drawing closer.

I don't know how long I hid there, teeth chattering. Only that gradually the darkness gathered around me in folds of shadow that almost made me feel safe. They lulled me, lied to me, and in their embrace I shivered and wept and finally fell asleep.

When I woke, the forest was suffused with cold grey light and drifting mist. My body ached from the cold and damp and from a night spent on the forest floor. I unfolded myself, certain she would be waiting for me. But there was nothing; no one was waiting. I shivered, wiped my numbed fingers down over my face, and pushed myself to my feet.

The inn had been reduced to smouldering embers, the smell of burning thick in the air. The wall had been wrenched away, the structure of the upper storey still visible, but the stairs had collapsed inwards. Only the stables remained untouched. I stood for a long time at the edge of the forest, willing myself forwards, but every time I went to take a step my heart seemed to stop in my chest and a cold terror overtook me, freezing me in my tracks.

I don't know how long I stood there staring at the smouldering ruins before I gathered just enough courage to take the first step away from the trees, not towards the inn, but to where Mia's corpse lay, face pressed into the mud. Her cheek had burned away to reveal the white curve of her jawbone, a few scraps of muscle still clinging to it, and I fell to my knees beside her, thinking myself too numb to cry any more tears.

Turned out I was wrong about that.

In the ruins I found the charred blackened bones that I assumed were Brandt's remains. His skull had been crushed by a falling beam, and I hoped that was what had killed him, that death had come swiftly in the end.

And then I scaled the ladder to my hiding spot in the stables. Even here, the smell of damp smoke lingering, clinging to the hay. An echo of Mia's screams flashed through my mind, and I drew a sharp breath, squeezed my eyes shut as I forced it away. Knowing I wouldn't be able to get rid of it for long. Gods, I miss her even now.

I prised up the loose board, half-expecting my treasures to have been stolen away, but everything was still there. I scooped it all out, stuffed the purse into my pockets. The locket I placed around my neck, tucked it away beneath my shirt where I thought it would be safe.

By the time I emerged into the yard, the endless storms of the past week had finally broken, Overhead the clouds parted to reveal a slash of cheerful blue sky. My heart hitched at the sight, how bitterly mocking it seemed, a cruel reminder of everything I had lost and how little the gods cared. But my fury was quickly forgotten, swallowed up with terror at a flash of movement by Mia's body.

Only a bird. A raven hopping closer. Curious. _Hungry._

"Go away!" I snatched up a stone and flung it at the bird. I missed. Badly. The raven took a few hopping steps away and cawed reproachfully at me, ruffled its wings in an act of defiance. And as I bent to pick up another stone I saw the other carrion birds perching in the trees, and the stone fell from my aching fingers. This was a pointless battle, and one that I clearly could never win. Not without a bow and an endless supply of arrows. Not to mention the strength and training to fire a bow. All of these things I lacked.

I muttered a curse, swiped at my damp cheeks with the back of my hand.

Until that moment, I'd been planning on burying Mia and Brandt's bodies. Nate's too, if I could find him. Masha I'd leave to the ravens and good fucking riddance, but as I took a step towards Mia, what remained of my courage crumbled.

I was weak and aching and exhausted, and I was at heart a coward. The longer I lingered, the more likely it was that I would be caught. I knew what I had to do, and still I hesitated, hating myself. I closed my eyes, unable to look at her, this girl who'd never had a chance. "I'm sorry," I whispered. As if it made a damn bit of difference whether I was sorry or not.

Another boy might have offered up a prayer to the Nine Divines, but fuck that shit. The bastarding gods had never lifted a finger to help Mia in her life, so what good could they do her now she was dead?

And then I turned my back on her. On Brandt. On the smouldering remains of the inn. And started walking.

It took me a long time to forgive myself for deserting them, and for having got them killed in the first place. In truth, I'm not certain that I ever really managed it or that I ever will. For all that I was a frightened boy, who had seen the girl he thought of as his sister murdered in front of him. Because I turned my back and I left them, and to this day I have never gone back.

Not when awake, at least. In my dreams I visit that dreadful place often.

~o~O~o~

I headed east through the West Weald. Since Bravil was the closest town it seemed as good a place to go as any other. I avoided the road, keeping out of sight in the cover of the trees, but the ground was soft and treacherous beneath my bared feet. My soles were heavily calloused, but I wasn't used to walking long distances, and after a couple of hours, my pace slowed to a crawl. Finally I conceded defeat, and stopped to eat the stale hunk of bread and the sweaty piece of cheese I'd brought with me. I ate fast, each mouthful threatening to stick in my throat, and when the meal was done I sat for a while, my back resting against a tree, tears hot on my cheeks, feeling sorry for myself. Bravil seemed much further away than I'd ever realised.

The gods only knew how long I wasted slumped against the tree bemoaning my situation, but the sun was high by the time I dragged myself back to my feet and forced myself on.

It was a miserable journey. With the storms broken, the capricious Cyrodilic weather had turned on me and the heat was sweltering. There was a strange old tale Brandt used to tell, about how before Tiber Septim came along and united the empire Cyrodiil used to be covered in thick jungle. It sounded like bollocks to me, but with sweat pooling in the small of my back and the hard-baked mud that encrusted my arms and legs pinching painfully at the hairs on my skin, I almost believed it. And every now and then a blister would pop on my feet with an eye-watering stab of pain.

So it seemed a relief when I stumbled upon a clearing, and the soft rushing sound of a stream sluicing in a flurry down a gentle tumble of dark rocks, stark amidst the rushing foam. Even the scorching heat seemed to ease a little. It was a peaceful place, or should have been, the clear blue sky visible through the canopy overhead, and the water was pleasantly cool when I scooped up a handful of it and rinsed my face.

I stripped off my filthy clothes and removed the locket, laid it carefully on the rocks, and plunged into the water. A moment of heart-stopping icy bliss, but it's lovely once you're in. I immersed myself until I'd grown used to the chill, then rolled onto my back, and gazed up at the gauzy sky, letting the current tug me gently along until my shoulder-blades nudged against the rocks at the start of the miniature falls.

It might be an exaggeration to say I got myself clean, but I did rinse off the worst of the mud and dirt, and raked my fingers through my matted hair. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I made myself marginally less filthy. 'Being clean' had always been a somewhat hazy concept for me in any case; so long as I wasn't crawling with lice and didn't stink like a polecat in heat, I was happy.

I ducked underneath the surface, stayed under for as long as I could, wishing I never had to come up for air. Under the water it wasn't just sounds that were muted and muffled, but memories and pain and the lingering ache in my body. It left me weightless, but sadly I was no Argonian, no matter how hard I tried to develop gills and breathe underwater. As I broke the surface, gasping and laughing, shaking myself like a dog and sending up a spray of water-droplets that sparkled in the sunlight, I froze.

A hard-faced woman sat cross-legged by my clothes, a short sword laid across her lap. Her choppy blunt-cut hair was the colour of a mouse's back, framing a thin pinched face and grim eyes. She wore a mixture of light and heavy armour: leather cuirass, rusting iron greaves. She held up her hand, her fingers curled as if frozen in the act of beckoning me forwards, but as I waded closer I saw she had my locket dangling from her fingers. Her eyes were fixed on it, filled with a greedy light I did not like at all.

"That's mine," I called out, my voice bolder than it had any right to be.

"Maybe it was," she said. Her eyes flicked to me. Flint-like, hard eyes, with no hint of pity or compassion in their depths. This woman was a killer. She'd slit my throat soon as look at me. "Mine now."

 _Stupid, stupid,_ I cursed myself. I should never have stopped to take the time to bathe. I should have kept on to Bravil.

I swallowed. Took a few steps out of the water. "You can have the rest of it," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. "Everything I have. You're welcome to it all. But the locket's mine. It's precious to me."

"I don't think you've grasped how this is going to go, boy. Everything here is ours."

 _Ours_ , I thought. _Shit, this isn't good._

"Can I have my clothes at least, or are you going to steal those too?"

" _My_ clothes," she corrected.

"Right. Your clothes. Any chance I could have a borrow of 'em? Not sure they'd fit a woman as beautiful as you."

"Well, aren't you a charmer." She bared her teeth. There was nothing friendly about the expression, but I'd amused her at least. Maybe I might actually get out of this with my neck intact. As I'd expected, she picked over my clothes, then balled them up and threw them to me.

She'd have struggled to give away rags like that. Even a half-naked beggar would have thought twice and then probably decided he'd rather not.

I wedged my trousers beneath my arm and tugged my shirt on over my head. She watched me dress with studied disinterest, then looked away. My gaze dropped to the blade in her lap. Nothing elegant or beautiful about that sword: a notched grey blade, spotted with rust, a hilt bound with strips of linen, yellowed from where she'd sweated into it. A poor quality blade, but against a half-naked boy without even a pewter fork to call a weapon it would be more than adequate.

As I waded towards the edge of the water, a loose rock shifted beneath my foot, and the glimmerings of a plan began to form. Her gaze swung back towards me, guarded and watchful. I took a breath, and pretended to lose my balance, let the current tug me downstream a few feet, while I struggled to regain my footing. I was dizzy enough with hunger and exhaustion that my clumsiness wasn't entirely faked. Submerged for a moment, I scooped up a rock from the bottom of the stream, then surfaced, spluttering. I kept the stone hidden as I scrambled to my feet, slipped again – entirely accidentally, this time – while the woman laughed at me.

"It's not funny." I hauled myself out of the stream, soles of my feet stinging from the popped blisters and abrasions, careful to keep my distance from her, my shirt clinging to my skin and making me shiver. I wrung out my sodden trousers and tried to pull them on, the soaking wet fabric sticking to my skin. What the hell was I going to do? She was watching me now, with a dangerous glint in her eyes that suggested she'd hack me down in moments if I tried anything, and I knew I probably should have cut my losses and made a run for it. But I wanted my fucking locket. It was the only thing I had left.

The stone pressed into my side as I hopped closer. If I could figure out a way to get the upper hand, maybe even get the sword away from her then...

There was a noise in the undergrowth and a man emerged from the forest behind her. He was dressed much like the woman, and so like her he could have been her brother. The same mouse-coloured hair, the same hard, pitiless eyes, and the same patchwork armour. But while she regarded me with studious disinterest, his eyes were more attentive, raking over me.

How long had he been there? I wondered. How long had he been watching me?

Long enough.

And while the woman probably never could have been described as soft-hearted, I think she still might have been persuaded to let me go unharmed. One look at him and I knew I was treading water in the deepest shit imaginable. Up to my fucking eyebrows in it and sinking slowly.

 _Think fast, idiot._

I let my gaze flick over his shoulder, and gasped. The luck of a thief can be a double-edged blade, as prone to turning on the thief without warning and at the worst possible moment, but my luck was running hot. Neither of them was the sharpest knife in the drawer. They both looked around, and I flicked the stone off to the right so that it ricocheted off a tree and drew their attention.

And yet again I ran.

I leapt over the stream, almost sobbing at the stabbing pain as my feet struck the slippery stones on the other side. The man bellowed behind me, a curse that could have been directed either at me or the woman, and my heart sank at the sound of pursuit. Then it leapt at the sound of a crash and splashing water, followed by enraged swearing, which told me one or both of them had tried to follow me over the slippery stones and got dunked for their troubles.

And because apparently I felt the shit I was in wasn't quite deep enough, I shot a look back over my shoulder and _laughed_. It was the man. And if I hadn't been completely and utterly fucked before, I sure as hell was now that I'd laughed at him.

Breathless, feet stinging, I scrambled up a steep slope, the loose leaf litter slipping out from beneath me. It was treacherous footing and agonising to run on with my feet stinging and sore and cut to ribbons. And the truth was I didn't have a prayer. I was just a boy, exhausted and half starved, and the man chasing me was strong and well-built, considerably faster and stronger than me. I was just too slow.

So much for the luck of thieves. It doesn't often win out against the luck of bandits.

He grabbed my hair, twisted it around his fingers and jerked me backwards. I howled, jabbing an elbow into his ribs and earning myself a backhand blow that left me reeling. A second harder blow, and my nose crunched, a flare of blinding pain shooting backwards into my skull. My eyes flooded with tears, and then he had me pinned to the ground, his teeth at my neck.

"That was a very stupid thing you just did, boy," he hissed. He was wet from the water, his weight crushing the air from my lungs, so heavy I could barely breath.

"Please. I didn't mean–"

He clamped his hand over my mouth, cutting me off. I bit down, sinking my teeth into the meat of his palm. He roared, a cry of pure rage and pain, and then grasped a handful of my hair and slammed my skull into the ground.

The world went distant. My vision blurred and when it sharpened again, I found myself staring at a fat green beetle the size of my thumbnail ambling along the edge of a tree root without a care in the world. Its carapace glimmered like glass armour, shot through with flecks of yellow-gold.

And the the bandit gripped my wrists and I was slammed back into myself, felt his weight pressing me into the ground, his breath hot on my ear. I struggled, screamed for help, until he shifted his grip on my wrists and tightened his arm around my throat and I couldn't scream, couldn't fight, could barely even breathe.

He jerked atop me, with a disbelieving sound like a half-choked cough, and then he stopped moving completely, his arm so tight about my neck I couldn't breathe at all. Sparks danced like wisps before my eyes, and I knew I was about to die. I flicked my gaze back to the trundling beetle, twisted my head to the side so I could at least breathe. Took a few gasping breaths until the beetle vanished out of sight, and still he did not move.

It took some doing to wriggle out from underneath him far enough that I had the leverage to brace myself against the ground and shove him off me. He rolled lifelessly onto his back, an arrow protruding from his skull, and I scrambled up, turned in a wild circle. I thought I saw a figure perched in the branch of a far-off tree raise its arm in greeting. And then I blinked and there was nothing there. Just a trick of light and shadow, the way the sunlight fell across the tree. Nothing there.

I turned then to stare down at the bandit instead. At how his head was tilted at a strange angle, propped on the shaft of the arrow. Its sharp tip of an arrow emerged from the pulped mess of his eye. The other eye stared lifelessly at the sky.

I spun away and puked up my guts, retched until there was nothing left in my stomach, until all that emerged from between my lips was foul-tasting bile.

And once that vital act was finished, I spat on him then staggered back, fighting the urge to burst into tears. In lieu of tears came a weltering flood of rage. I spun, and kicked the corpse hard in its ribs, then fell to my knees and jerked his dagger free from its sheath. Nothing special, plain workmanlike steel, but it was sharp enough. And I closed my hand around the hilt, feeling its weight.

I lost my mind, I think. In fear and fury and hatred. I'm not even sure what I was thinking, only that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to set the point of the dagger against his skin and stab him. Slow and uncertain at first, but more wildly as the madness took hold, hacking and twisting, the honed blade catching on bone. As if this pointless act of vengeance against a corpse that no longer posed any threat took the edge of my fear, made me feel less helpless and lost and godsdamned vulnerable.

The gods only know how many times I stabbed him, only that by the end I had to grip the dagger with both hands because my arm was aching so badly. Nor do I know how long I would have kept hacking at his corpse if by the end I hadn't been crying so hard I couldn't even see.

The dagger fell from my nerveless fingers, and I pressed my hands against my face, shuddering.

 _It's just meat,_ I told myself. _Just meat, that's all. Let it fucking rot there._

I should have fled then. I would have if it hadn't been for the locket. Instead, I wiped my cheeks again and snatched up the dagger from the ground. I circled back to the clearing, slowed and pressed myself against a tree when I heard the sound of a blade being whetted.

The woman sat with her back to me, bent over the sword in her lap. She'd started a fire, and was roasting a rabbit on a spit. The smell of it made my mouth water, but I forced my gaze back to her neck, my fingers tightening around the hilt of the dagger. All I had to do was press the blade of my dagger against her throat. That was all it would take.

And damn me but I wanted to do it. I wanted to murder the bitch for what she'd done. For what she'd been about to let her husband or brother or whatever the fuck he was do to me. My gaze fixed on her, and all the rest of the world was stripped away. I was silent as a shadow, as invisible as the shade that the stories supposedly said had given birth to me. The sound of the stream covered what little noise I made as I crept closer, my breath stilled in my throat. Even my heart seemed to have stopped, and all I could think of was the moment when I would set the dagger against her dirt-encrusted skin and cut her throat.

My lips peeled back from my teeth in an expression of wild joy, and the woods seemed to have gone silent and intent around me. As if the attention of something ancient and powerful had turned to regard me, to hold me in its gaze.

It was a thrilling feeling, this, and I've known it since, though never so strong as I did this day. Perhaps you have felt it too, although whether you have acted on it I cannot say. To hold someone's life in the palm of your hand, to know that with one act you could extinguish that fragile soul as easily as a candle, there are few sensations more exhilarating. It's like sex, or how I imagine magic must feel, or the thrill of the tumblers of a bastard of a lock finally falling into place.

This was my chance to take control, to become something more than a frightened boy with tears still drying on his cheeks.

Another snik of the whetstone. I took in every detail, her greasy hair, oiled down close to her scalp. A mole by the nape of her neck. One of her ears was missing its lobe, a punishment for forging coin. And the locket rested on the ground beside her. My gaze darted to it, then back to her throat. The dagger came up.

My body seemed to move not in response to my will but at the will of the one who watched. I felt an ancient eager hunger, a longing to see the knife bite deep into flesh, and I wanted to see the flare of terror and knowledge in her eyes in the instant before she died. I wanted her to know in her last fleeting moments that she had fucked with the wrong skinny little starveling boy.

I wanted to. So badly. But I couldn't do it.

Instead I knelt, and used the dagger to hook the chain of the locket and drag it towards me. Around me the world seemed to sigh in disappointment. Whatever hungry gaze had been turned towards me vanished, and I almost felt bereft in its wake.

Before I slipped back into the woods, I took one more look at her, thinking that it might not be too late, but the moment of savage joy had passed. My blood lust had fled, and I was just a boy again, small for my years, bruised and battered and afraid.

And so I melted back into the treeline and let the shadows take me.

I won't ask you what you know of Sithis. Whatever you have to say, I suspect it would not something which I would choose to know. We all make decisions in our lives we later come to regret, and I have made more than my fair share. Had I taken that step my life would have been very different. Perhaps it might even have been happier. And the gods only knew how many innocents this woman had slain, and how many more she would kill before she was finally cut down, but I could not take her life in cold blood.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a murderer.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Please note this chapter contains scenes of animal slaughter. Thanks to tafferling and ZadArchie for their work betaing.**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

" _Old, worn, and wicked._

 _Wet, wounded, and wild._

 _Empty as the eastern horizon, dusk on the Niben._

 _Solemn and bitter as the grave._ "

– Varon Vamori

My first glimpse of Bravil was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen in my life. Those high walls of grey stone promising all the safety Imperial fortifications could offer. Behind them gulls arched through the gentle cloud-wisped sky of late afternoon. The sounds all around me were peaceful: birdsong and the distant whisper of the river, and for a long few moments I could only stand and gawp, my fear and exhaustion swept away.

 _Keep moving, idiot._

With a groan, I took a cautious glance at the woods behind me, then forced myself on. Awful as the incident with the bandits had been, it had been a valuable lesson never to allow myself to be lulled by a peaceful place. Terrible things happen in peaceful places. I wish I could say that time and experience have proven otherwise, but I'm afraid the opposite is true. When you think yourself safe is when you need to take the most care.

I skirted the Larsius, following the steep slope that ran down towards the slow-moving silted-up river until I reached the road. The paving hurt my feet, so I kept to the grassy bank beside it, wondering how long it would be before I could walk again without my feet hurting. My soles, beset with blisters, stung and burned and ached with every kind of pain, but I kept following the road north. The wind tugged at my hair like a lover, seemed almost to be welcoming me to Bravil.

And while I limped on, my thoughts lingered on how I would finally be safe here. That I might be able to find a position in the market or in one of the inns. Perhaps even an apprenticeship. I liked the thought of becoming an armourer, of learning a trade other than the only trade I had been forced to teach myself, which was to be a thief and a rogue.

On my right, gleaming white stone rose out of a rocky outcrop. Ruins, many centuries old, but the stones were still polished white, shining in the sunlight so brightly my breath caught in my throat. I'd never seen an Ayleid ruin before, and the temptation to explore, to clamber over the stones and investigate, tugged at me. I had nothing but the locket about my neck and the stolen dagger, but I had heard the ancient ruins of the heartland elves were filled with priceless treasures just waiting for a bold adventurer to stumble across them. Well, I might not be much of an adventurer yet, but I was bold and I could be quick and quiet, even if I wasn't a fighter.

I resisted, and a good job I did, because I almost certainly would have died within those long-forgotten halls, my rat-gnawed bones waiting to be discovered by an adventurer in a century or two, who might have paused to wonder what such a slight skeleton was doing in such a place before looting my bones of their meagre possessions. I was finally beginning to see how dangerous such a world could be to a boy on his own. Never let it be said that I am a slow learner.

I passed the stables, and saw my first view of the main gate that led to Bravil and the rope bridge that spanned the width of the river. It was an unnerving thing, narrow enough that one man could walk across it with a hand on each rope. Perhaps two could walk abreast, but not with ease, and not if they were in full armour. It swayed unnervingly in the wind, and the slats were spaced so far apart, you could see the silt-laden Larsius river below. Some of the slats looked almost rotted through, and although I told myself it had to be safe, I was still afraid to put my weight on any one of them. I'd expected a solid wooden bridge, or one of stone, not this treacherous looking thing.

As I neared it, my courage began to falter. The Larsius was carrying half a day's worth of effluent out into Niben Bay, so even if I survived the drop, gods only knew what sort of diseases I would catch from the water. I placed my hand on the ropes, stared at the first board, the sound of my blood in my ears. I'd never been so high as this with footholds I wasn't sure could be trusted. I might not be afraid of heights, but I was afraid of falling.

And as I tarried, the guard who had shot me a dubious look as I approached sighed wearily. "It's not so bad as it looks, citizen."

 _Citizen_. An odd thing to be called. I couldn't remember having been called anything of the like before. For the first time I looked at him, past the helm to the face underneath. He was younger than I had first taken him for, the line of his nose and jaw Imperial, but his was skin dark enough to be a Redguard's. And there was a wary look in his eyes, as if he didn't quite trust me; It was the expression of a man who'd never had a childhood, whose life had been hard from the beginning. Who'd had to fight bitterly for every meagre scrap of luck. I didn't recognise that look then, since I'd never had the chance to see my own face reflected clearly, but it's familiar to me now, since I see it in my own eyes every time I look in the mirror.

"I didn't think it'd be so high," I blurted out, and then cringed, certain the guard would laugh at me. He did smile, but gently.

"First time in Bravil?"

I nodded. _First time anywhere_ , I thought.

"Take my advice, citizen," the guard warned me. "Go back where you came from. This is no place for a child alone. You're best off with your parents."

"Ain't got no parents." A painful ache in my throat, the threat of tears. I swallowed them down, sought instead for the hard ball of hatred and fury I had felt when I was about to kill the bandit-woman, but that was long gone. I was nothing but a boy, frightened of falling. And if I cried now, I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop. I looked away from the guard, because I couldn't stand to see the pity in his eyes. Stared out at the distant bay instead, the sunlight glinting on the water.

He took another look at me then. I could feel his gaze, see him studying me in the corner of my eye, taking in my filthy clothes, the way I was standing on the blades of my feet because it hurt too much to set them flat against the ground. "Somebody hurt you?" he asked.

"No."

He grunted like he knew I was lying. A soft rustling sound and I flinched. Couldn't help it, coward that I was. "Here," he said, softly. I glanced at him warily, saw he was holding out a couple of gold coins. When I didn't accept them he sighed. "Take them, kid. 'Cause I'm too damn lazy to put them back in my pocket."

I snaked out my hand, snatched the gold coins from his hand. The trick is to watch their eyes. A man's hand may lie, but his eyes never will. I closed my fist around them and eyed him warily.

"We usually say 'thank you' 'round here," he said, although his voice was affable.

"Thanks," I muttered, still searching for a trick. But there seemed not to be one. Just this dark-skinned man with sad eyes, who wasn't much older than I was.

"Buy yourself something to eat, but watch your pockets. And you want my advice, don't linger in Bravil too long. It's not a good place for children."

"Thank you," I said again, and this time my words were more certain. "The bridge, is it..."

He grinned. "It's safer than it looks, citizen, I promise."

"Right." _Safer than it looks._ Since it looked like it was falling apart, that wasn't saying much, but I couldn't see why this man would hand over his coin only to watch it plunge into the stinking river, so I set myself towards the town walls and placed my hands on the ropes.

I took a breath, took the first step. The board creaked beneath my weight but held.

 _He's right,_ I thought, after a few more steps. _It's really not so bad._

A third of the way across and I was grinning, bouncing up and down on the bridge with all the instinct for self-preservation of your average thirteen year old boy. At least until the guard, who'd been leaning against the post watching me, called out, "By the by, if a board does break and you survive the fall, try not to swallow any of the water."

"Wh-What?" My bouncing stopped. I stared back at him in terror. The grin on his face told me he had been joking. Fury mingled with amusement, and I shook my head, gave a disbelieving laugh. "You _bastard_."

He winked. "Takes one to know one, citizen. Take care in there. And finally he turned back to his post. And I continued on mine. No bouncing this time.

I laughed aloud as I hopped off the end of the rope bridge onto solid ground, almost missing the swaying motions of the bridge. My fear seemed a distant memory, and now I had coin in my pocket, and all of my life ahead of me.

Whatever it was to be I was certain I would find the answer in Bravil. And as it turned out I was right.

I think it's fair to say it was not what I'd been expecting.

~o~O~o~

In hindsight, the rope bridge should have been a clue. The stench rising from the city seemed almost a living thing. The mingling stink of piss and shit and rotting fish. Here a tannery, and there the smell of boiling cabbage from the open window of one of the wooden shacks. Beggars of all ages and races on the streets, a woman slumped in a doorway, one leg a red inflamed stump. Her eyes white and unseeing, she called out to me for a Septim, only a single Septim, and I faltered, thinking of the handful of coins in my pocket. But I could not spare any one of them, so I moved on, a knot of guilt tightening in my chest. She wasn't the only beggar. Before I'd walked five steps, I'd seen as many more.

The streets were slick with mud and slurry, the buildings wooden shacks stacked atop of each other, as many as three storeys high in some cases. Makeshift rope bridges or rotting planks linked the upper storey platforms, forming a secondary thoroughfare in the sky, free of mud but treacherous and slippery and hardly safe. And rising above it all, dominating the wretched, stinking, miserable-looking place, was the elegant gray stone of the Great Chapel of Mara. It seemed the one beautiful thing in the whole squalid town.

My stomach growled, reminding me of how long it had been since I'd eaten and how little. Outside an unpromising-looking place called the Lonely Suitor Lodge, I hesitated, then slipped in behind a customer, froze when I saw the orc behind the counter. I'd never seen an orc up close, only from a distance when Nate and I would sit on the wall to watch the Legion marching south to Elsweyr and talk bollocks about how we might join up when we were older. This one was a mean-looking bastard. Had to be, I suppose, to run a business in a town like Bravil. His hands were big and powerful enough to grind my skull to dust if he chose, and until he saw my coins he looked like he was contemplating doing exactly that.

I ordered a small beer and a bowl of stew, regretted it when my change from the three Septims was a mere handful of coppers, but that regret was soon forgotten when the stew was brought out. At the smell of it, I was instantly ravenous again. It was far better than anything I'd eaten at the inn, flavoured with caraway and so dense with mushrooms, onions and large chunks of ham that my spoon could have stood upright. I'd wolfed down half of it before I remembered it came with a large hunk of buttered rye bread. I mopped up every last drop with the bread until I might as well have licked the bowl clean, something I seriously considered doing as I drank my small beer and looked around the lodge, wishing I'd made the stew last longer.

I was the youngest and raggediest person there by far, but none of the clientele looked like much. A pair of Argonians arguing in Jel – at least I thought they were arguing, but it was hard to tell. A young Khajiit with moulting fur and and darting fearful eyes. A drunken nobleman who, from the state of his sweat-stained silks, had fallen on hard times.

Pleasantly replete for the moment, I eyed the orc, wondering if he needed a pot boy. My stomach growled again, as if to remind me feeling full was only a temporary state of affairs, and I had no coin to speak of other than a handful of coppers.

Brandt had always spoken approvingly of orcs, how they weren't the savage murderous barbarians that many believed them to be, but a misunderstood people with a long and noble history, art and culture. Hard to believe, looking at the orc, with his swarthy, green skin, his hands the size of trenchers, his boar-like tusks that seemed designed for disembowelling.

"Something more I can get you, boy?" the orc demanded. I looked down at the clay bowl, polished clean. All the small beer had gone, and I'd not eaten for so long that even that small amount of alcohol made me feel light-headed. The chair in which I sat felt comfortable – although it wasn't really; just my exhausted body playing tricks on me, relieved that I hadn't asked it to rest on the cold, damp ground. My aching body didn't care about the hint of threat in the orc's eyes; all it wanted was to curl up and sleep sheltered beneath a roof.

I wrapped my fist around the coppers in my pocket, then wearily shook my head. The other patrons glanced at me with pity, but no one said anything as I limped back outside. It was raining again, a soft summery drizzle, rain so fine it was scarcely more than a mist in the air.

From outside the walls, I'd expected Bravil to be huge, but it was smaller than I'd expected, a rat's-nest of wooden shacks, crowded together on a handful of islands on the Larsius, which provided transport and food and a rudimentary sewage system for the town, carrying effluent out into Niben Bay. One island was dominated by Castle Bravil, the other two were crammed with shacks, shops and guildhalls, and everything was surrounded by the fortified walls, foundations sunk deep into the river. The islands were linked by yet more rope bridges, and I noticed with a lack of surprise that the bridge leading to the castle was in the best repair of the lot.

I explored the town, circling around, skirting the buildings until I returned to the square and to the statue of the woman the locals called the Lucky Old Lady. It was pleasant enough, or it should have been – a woman surrounded by adoring children – but something about the look on her serene face sent a strange chill through me, the tug of something hungry in my gut. I didn't want to spend too much time around that statue, but equally I didn't much like the thought of turning my back on it either.

When the rain grew heavier, I took shelter in the Great Chapel, leaving wet footprints on the flagstones, and sank onto one of the pews in an attempt to look like a worshipper. I'd never had much time for the gods, but of the Nine Mara was probably the best of the lot. So I figured, at least, but despite the calm serenity of the chapel, I felt the emptiness in my heart all the more. I couldn't bear it for long. When I emerged I found the rain had stopped: the ground a little muddier, the air a little fresher. Pleasant while it lasted, but it seldom lasted for long.

A woman dumped a stinking pail of slop over the fence into the river, and glared at me as she shook her hair back. An old one-eared Khajiit bare to the waist was fishing with a rod off the wharf, although the Nine only knew what there was worth catching in that filthy water. Still I sat and watched for a while, enjoying the all-too-brief fresh air and leaning back against a posts. One of the Khajiit's eyes was a puckered scar, his fur a deep mahogany, mottled with copper stripes and salted with grey. He said nothing, but nodded to me, continued to fish in a companionable silence as a fishing boat returned from the bay, fetching its meagre haul up the river, the fisherman wielding long poles to guide along the heavily-silted bottom of the river.

A flash of movement on the banks: a Redguard boy about my age, slipping nimbly down the bank, quick and practised, He'd leapt onto the boat and snatched up a fish before the raging fisherman could react, scrambled up the bank towards us while the fisherman bellowed insults at him.

The obscene gesture he threw back at them made me laugh, and he turned on me with a hard unfriendly glare. He looked at me as if thinking about challenging me, but one of the fisherman was sweating and swearing his way up the bank towards us, and he thought better of it, made a run for it instead.

The Khajiit chuckled, cocking his ears at me, then hissed as something tugged on the line. I sat forward, curious, as he reeled in a thrashing eel. It was the length of a man's arm, very much like a slaughterfish and with about as many teeth in its ugly bulbous head. No eyes that I could see, but it seemed to know we were there anyway, twisting towards the Khajiit, trying to bite him even as he impaled it on a hook above a pail of water.

Its middle was swollen like a pregnant woman's belly, and the Khajiit prodded the bulge in appreciation, then drew a knife, and sliced into its guts. Out spilled a thousand silvery creatures each the size of my little finger, along with a smell that made my guts lurch with nausea. They pattered into the bucket, while the eel-like creature twisted and slapped against the pole in a fury. The Khajiit swirled the water in the bucket, then fished one of the spawn from the bucket, and dropped it into his mouth whole, swallowed in one gulp. "Good," he said, dragging the word out, and then nodded to me. "This one wants to try?"

"Um..." I stared into the pail, grimacing. "What are they?"

"Larsius eels. Babies. They're good." As I hesitated, the Khajiit plucked one of the elvers from the bucket and held it out to me. I took it, yelped as the vicious little bugger wrenched around in my grip, trying to bite me with its tiny teeth. The Khajiit swallowed another, sucking it into his mouth and smacking his lips with a satisfied growl.

Well, food was food, and I wasn't in the habit of turning it down when it was offered to me freely. "Swallow whole," the Khajiit ordered. I dropped the elver into my mouth, panicked almost straight away and bit down sharply, felt its spine crunch. My mouth flooded with the foulest tasting liquid I'd ever tried, smoky and musty and tasting of rot. And still I swallowed the little bastard down, gagging. The Khajiit grinned at me, his ears pricked up. "Good?"

I coughed, resisted to urge to hawk up my guts and spit them into the river. "Uh. Yeah. Thanks."

"Another?"

I shook my head. I wasn't in the habit of turning down food, but I wasn't an idiot. The Khajiit shrugged, set the pail aside, and pushed himself to his feet, while I watched, trying not to taste the flavour lingering in my mouth. The eel still wasn't dead, but it seemed not to bother the Khajiit. He cut a slit beneath its gills, gripped the edge of its skin with a grubby-looking cloth, and jerked it down in one swift movement. A tearing sound, like ripping cloth, and the eel's skin stripped off like a stocking, bringing back my feeling of nausea with a vengeance.

Before I threw up all over his catch – and besides the fishermen from the boat were eyeing me with suspicion as they unloaded theirs – I thanked the Khajiit and took my leave.

I hadn't thought it would be possible to find myself somewhere more wretched than Masha's inn, but it seemed that I'd managed to find it, stinking river, crippled beggars and all.

Damn it, why the fuck hadn't I gone _west?_

~o~O~o~

Dawn brought the early morning light and with it a whole new layer of pain. My legs – particularly my thighs – were an aching mass of amorphous pain, thanks to my long journey, and to yet another night spent on the cold ground, nestled in grass wet with dew with a stone wall at my back. I'd found myself a quiet spot behind the Great Chapel, concealed from view behind some boulders, with long grass to shield me. It seemed safe enough, but the cemetery was too damn close and my night had been disturbed by dreams. I'd been back in the forest, running until the soles of my feet burned, until my chest screamed, running until something grabbed me from behind, slammed me face-first into a tree. Not the bandit, but _her._

That bitch who had worn my mother's face. Who had murdered my sister and my friend. Not teeth at my neck, not _yet_ , but only her cold lips and her breathless laugh, that cruel, cold-hearted little chuckle.

"Found you," she whispered. "You can't run forever, little love."

I'd snapped awake, gasping and sobbing. Found it was daylight. Sort of.

Perhaps part of me had hoped I would be back in the inn, that the whole thing had just been a massively fucked up dream. Another part of me – the part that was still insisted on remaining a foolish boy who believed in happy endings – might even have dared to hope I'd wake up, not in the inn, but in a comfortable bed in a comfortable room, with the bustle of a prosperous town drifting through the window, and my mother singing softly as she worked in the kitchen.

Instead there was only wet grass and cold stone and the stink of Bravil. Although I could hear singing. A woman's voice, a melancholy song.

And even then it was a while before I could make my aching body sit up.

The woman singing was an Altmer. She sat on one of the upper storey platforms, dressed in a knee-length shift that left her legs and shoulders bared to the sun. Her skin was golden sheened, her hair coppery, spilling over her shoulders in a tumbled mass of curls, and she seemed a glorious thing, sunlight made flesh in the midst of such a filthy miserable place, with a voice like warmed honey. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

She sensed me watching, her strange golden eyes seeking me out. And not for an instant did she stop her heart-rending song. Nor did she stop at the sound of a sharp cry of pain from within the shack. The sound of muffled begging, the words inaudible.

The Altmer lowered her head, but did not stop singing, even as the door opened and a guard stepped from the house, buckling up his sword belt. He was powerfully built and stocky, an Imperial with dark hair and the shadow of a beard. He paused, cupping the Altmer woman's cheek, and only now did she fall silent as she lowered her gaze, meek, submissive. Only I was certain that beneath her fall of hair her eyes were narrowed with rage. Something about the set of her shoulders, the way the fabric of her shift bunched in her hands.

As the woman inside sobbed, the Altmer tilted her head, let the guard kiss her cheek, and thinking himself unseen he slipped his hand inside her shift to squeeze her breast. Pain flashed across her face and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying out in rage. In the doorway a shadow lurked, ash-coloured fingers curling around the edge of the door.

The guard left, his tread heavy down the steps. The Altmer woman stood, and moved to the door, murmured something to the woman within, her voice soothing. And feeling like I was spying on something private, I slipped away.

A dense smell of sweat and iron and rotting meat enveloped me in Bravil's shambles, a warren of butcher's shops and slaughterhouses, where makeshift gutters had been dug in the mud and braced with planks in an attempt to funnel away the blood and guts and rotting offal. The air was thick with flies, a cloud of them rising up as a butcher in a gorestained apron, flicked a cloth lazily at the half-dissected carcass on his counter. Too hot to chase away flies like he gave a damn.

Outside a sausage-maker's, I watched several men wrestle a squealing pig onto a table and pin it down for the butcher to cut its throat with a stab and a wrench of his knife. A bucket had been set beneath the table to catch the gush of blood, and the men turned away with a chorus of mocking laughter aimed at one of their number, an apprentice butcher who looked like he was going to throw up as he watched the pig's lifeblood drain into the bucket.

It was market day, the stalls set up in the square around the statue of the Lucky Old Lady, which still inexplicably gave me the creeps. The hot yeasty smell of fresh baked bread made my stomach knot with hunger, and I eyed the stall until the baker caught me looking and gave me a hard enough glare that I moved quickly on.

I nodded a greeting the old Khajiit fisherman, who was selling his smoked fish and elvers. He was something of a fixture in Bravil in those days, although I'm sad to say he's since long dead. His death probably came as something of a relief to the poor misunderstood eels of the Larsius, because as far as I know, they were the only foodstuff he ever seemed to eat, and he was the only person I ever met in Bravil who was stupid enough to eat them. Other than me.

When the tight-arsed baker was looking the other way, I swiped a fresh baked sweetroll from his stall and found a spot overlooking the market. I half-expected to be chased away with a scolding, but no one seemed to give a damn that I was there.

The market was like any other weekly market in any other town, a little shabbier than most, perhaps, but with Bravil so close to Elsweyr, it also sold a larger selection of exotic goods than might have been expected in such a poor town. There were stalls selling fruit and vegetables, several stalls belonging to Khajiit caravans, which sold all sorts of junk and trinkets, but which mainly seemed to be doing a brisk, discreet trade with other Khajiits. A fish stall, selling freshly caught fish, and even the Khajiit fisherman was selling packets of smoked eel and frying up elvers over a small stove, although he seemed to be polishing off his own catch rather than actually selling it.

Stall after stall after stall, a labyrinth of stalls and sellers and shoppers, and more people than I had ever seen in one place, walking on makeshift paths of wooden boards laid over the mud. They were mostly poor, but here and there I could see the occasional flash of brightly coloured silks, or the majestic sweep of a mage's robes, or the glint of sunlight on armour.

The guards moved around the outskirts, lazy and sluggish in the murky heat. I saw the guard who'd squeezed the Altmer woman's breast bantering with the baker; he took two sweetrolls without paying and barged his way through the crowd while behind him the smile curdled on the baker's face.

And there were children too. A couple of boys younger than me, playing with knucklebones in the mud, or pretending to, since they were really watching the crowd. The smaller one, a Redguard, lifted his head, gaze intent on a noble walking through the market. From elsewhere there rose a high cry of "Look to your purse!" and I watched the noble touch his quilted doublet where his purse was concealed. I sat up, grinning, then slipped down the steps, and into the jostling crowd after the noble.

A sudden squealing took me by surprise. The crowd surged like a wave, hammering me against a cliff-face of sharp elbows, then it parted, making way for a squealing piglet with a swarm of children in pursuit. They shrieked in joy as they slipped in the mud, hauled each other back, fighting for each inch of the lead. And my attention was momentarily snagged, because _damn_ that looked like fun. The piglet swerved my way and I dodged clumsily, slamming hard into the noble I'd been following.

"You clumsy fool," he spat at me, cuffing my ears so hard they rang. Stammering apologies, I ducked before he could take another swing, then vanished into the crowd and was away down an alley, taking turns at random, until I was lost in the shambles again, safe in the stink of blood and slaughter.

Beneath the struts of a staircase, I gave a laugh as I weighed the coin purse I'd cut free from his jerkin, trying to judge how many coins it held. More than the three I'd got from the guard, that was for certain. Maybe I'd survive in Bravil after all.

Or maybe not.

The soft scuff of shoes in the mud. A shadow fell over me. I stiffened, clutching the purse closer. Not a guard, thank the gods, but the Redguard boy, the one I'd seen stealing the fish the day before, and by his expression he hadn't come to congratulate me on my pickpocketing success. He was bigger than me, although just about everyone was bigger than me in those days, his bared arms ropy with muscle. I edged the other way around the staircase, keeping the struts between us, sensed too late movement behind me, as my retreat was cut off by two more grim-faced boys.

"That's mine," the Redguard said.

Those words, which I'd spoken myself so recently, made a cold fist of panic clench in my chest. I fought against it, had to force the cocky tone back to my voice.

"Funny, because I don't see your name on it."

"You steal round here you have to answer to me," he said.

"What are you, the Thieves' Guild? 'Cause if so I'll happily pay my dues." I grinned, weighing the purse. "I can afford 'em now."

He snorted. "Ain't no Thieves' Guild. Not here."

"Then I guess this is all mine after all. Sorry about that." I darted another cautious glance at the two boys behind me, a Redguard and a Breton. I recognised the Redguard as the small boy I'd seen playing in the mud earlier, and him I was pretty sure I could take, but the Breton was big. I could have told myself that meant he'd be slow, but street-rats like this would be used to fighting and I was outnumbered.

They edged down the alley towards me, hemming me in. The smaller one had a pinched look to his cheeks that suggested he never got quite enough to eat, and when he spoke I realised he wasn't a boy at all, but a girl. "Kill him, Armande. Cut his fucking throat."

I glanced back at the Redguard boy, grinning. "Your name's _Armande_?"

He glared at me. "Shut up."

"Ain't that a Breton name? You don't look much like a Breton to me."

He took a threatening step towards me. "I said, shut up. Give me that damn purse."

 _You stupid bastard_ , I thought. _This is going to get you killed._ " _No_."

He blinked, taken aback. He hadn't expected me to refuse. "You'd better–"

"Kill him, Armande!" the girl cried again, and he spun towards her.

"Damn it, Elise, shut _up,"_ he hissed. "Do you want to bring the guards down on us?"

The bloodthirsty little brat subsided, glowering at me.

"She your little sister, friend?" I asked, in a conversational tone. His gaze shifted to me and I knew I was in trouble. He might not have been as vicious as the girl, but his eyes were grim, and they had the same hungry look. He wanted that purse. He might not be willing to murder me, but he'd fight me for it, I was sure of that. And I was also pretty sure he'd win.

"I'm not your friend. We're the ones who let that fucking pig go free, Imperial. That purse is ours by right. You stole it from us."

I shifted my weight, felt the weight of the dagger in my belt. "Last I checked that's what thieves do. They steal."

"Right. And now _I'm_ stealing it back. Give me the purse and no one has to get hurt. _Friend_."

"And if I don't?"

A one-shouldered shrug. "Then I'll slit your throat and leave you for the rats."

"Mm." I caught my upper lip between my teeth, stared at the purse cupped in the palm of my hand. "Well, in that case I guess I haven't got much choice, have I?"

He drew his lips back from his teeth. "Glad you see it our way."

I made to throw him the purse. Clenched my fingers around it at the last minute instead, and as he instinctively reached to catch it, I barged him, slamming my shoulder into his gut.

Sometimes fights are more about speed than strength. Sometimes it doesn't matter how big or strong you are if your opponent is quick and smart enough to grab the initiative from the outset. It worked for me before with Nate, And it worked now.

I knocked him off balance, drove the air from his lungs. Elise shrieked as I twisted, diving underneath his flailing arms. A moment of terrified skidding in the mud, and then I was off and running, taking a left turn down an alley with him on my heels. And for all that he was big, he was _fast_. Much faster than I'd expected, and he knew this town better than I did.

I sprinted up a staircase, taking the steps three at a time, sprinted along the balcony. Saw ahead what might as well have been a gaping chasm between the two buildings. No time to think or slow down; instead I sped up, took a running jump. People in the street below gaped up at me, then I hit the opposite side of the platform, skidding on the slippery wood, banging my knee into the corner of the building. And then I was running again, flinging myself down the stairs, took another sharp swerve down an alley–

And slammed into the Breton who might as well have been a stone wall he was that solid. A punch to my gut winded me, and he wrenched my wrist backwards, prised my fingers apart to get the purse.

"It's mine," I spat. "You can't have it."

But it was already lost. He snorted and stuffed it in his pocket.

Tears of rage and hurt flooded my eyes at the unfairness of it, as if I hadn't yet learned how utterly unfair this fucking world is. I wrenched at the boy's grip, while Armande approached, out of breath and glaring at me. "You little shit."

"Come near me and I'll do worse than that."

He nodded to the boy holding me. "Let him go, Brey."

"But–"

"Let him _go_."

Brey gave me a hard shove in the back, making me stagger to my knees in front of Armande, who shifting his weight, bunched his hands into fists. A ragged circle of kids had formed around us. No laughter, or jeering, like you might get at a fight between adults, only a taut, watchful silence. And Armande circling me like a street fighter, waiting until I got up. I eyed him warily, then twisted around, hoping to make a run for it, but my escape route was blocked. "Hey, you wanted to fight," Armande said. "So let's fight."

 _Shit._

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and turned towards him, knowing I was going to be in for a world of pain.

The fight was short, ugly and brutal and it was only ever going to end one way. He knew how fast I was now and he was prepared. A dirty fighter I may be, but back then I wasn't dirty _enough_. I got in a few decent blows, including one that I'm pretty sure broke his nose, but that's not a whole lot of consolation when you're curled up in a ball being kicked in the ribs and crying like a child.

Still, I never had been one to give up easily.

I dug my hand into the mud, slick and cold between my fingers. As Armande drew back his foot, I rolled, flung a handful of mud at his face. He jerked his head to the side, giving me enough time to grab his foot and twist, wrenching him off balance. A collective gasp of shock from the watching children, as I scrambled up, threw myself on him, drawing my fist back to break his fucking nose once and for all. But I was too small, too damned weak. He drove his foot into my gut, knocking the wind out of me, and then I was the one on my back, and he was drawing back his fist, eyes narrowed in rage and I knew, I _knew_ , I was fucked, that I'd spend my last day broken and bleeding into Bravil's stinking mud.

One of the watching kids whistled, a high piercing sound and like a flock of starlings the circle of kids fled. Armande's eyes widened in terror, his fist frozen in its arc. I followed his gaze, saw the guard ahead, and then he was up and running. His terror was contagious. I rolled up into a wheezing bloodied ball, but the guard ran past me, without so much a glance to check whether I was hurt.

I muttered a swearword, heaved myself up, dripping mud and bleeding. I'd woken up sore and now I was in absolute fucking agony as I drew a muddied hand across my cheek, thinking, _Fuck Bravil. Fuck it to Oblivion and back and then fuck it right back to Oblivion again._

Armande, the godsdamned bastard, hadn't got far before the guard had caught him, and now it was his turn to lie on the ground curled up while some fucker bigger than he was kicked him in his unprotected soft spots.

 _Walk away. The cunt deserves it._

"Fuck." I slammed my fist into the wall. Then I whirled, limped up the street until I was enveloped by the stink of rotting meat. The butcher's apprentice was leaning against the wall retching, a small puddle of vomit between his feet. Poor bastard: there's few experiences more humiliating than chucking up your guts while people laugh at you. And while they were distracted I snatched up the bucket of blood, ducked away down an alley before they realised, and hurried back, hauling the bucket up the steps to the platform overlooking the street.

"Oi!"

The guard stepped back, sweating hard under his armour. Turns out it's hot and thirsty work kicking the shit out of children. He blinked up at me in confusion. And then I tipped the bucket over the edge of the balcony. The guard's eyes widened in surprise and then horror, as what seemed like a pint or two of partially concealed, still-warm pig's blood struck him full in the face.

Followed by the bucket, which collided with his skull, knocking him to the ground. I stared, unable to do anything other than let out a disbelieving laugh at what I'd just done. Until Armande yelled at me.

"Run, you fucking idiot!"

And, looking at the guard, rolling and slipping in the mud and blood as he tried to climb back to his feet, I decided that running like bloody fuck was probably the wisest course of action.

As the guard bellowed in fury below I turned, saw another guard coming up the wooden steps towards me. I whirled, and sprinted the other way, took a running jump onto the next platform, almost laughing, because this was _easy_ , I could do this. And from there I leapt onto the roof of the adjoining building, tiles skittering out from underneath me. I slid down, landed on the platform, and jumped down to join Armande in the street below.

"This way," he hissed, and I followed him, ducked under the struts of a staircase while a guard made a grab at me, but he was too bulky to follow, and then we were running again, sprinting down a side street and around the back of the Great Chapel.

I collapsed on my back, pushing back my hair. "Fuck." When my heart ceased hammering, and I felt like I could breathe again, I sat up. Armande was leaning against the wall of the chapel, squinting at me. "Why'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Help me. I beat the shit out of you."

I rolled up, took a cautious glance around the side of the chapel "Hey, the tables were turning."

"Yeah, in the direction of my fist. My little sister punches harder than you."

"I'm not surprised. If that bloodthirsty brat back in the market's your little sister then she's vicious. I reckon I'd rather get beaten up by you any day." And even so, I shifted awkwardly as a spasm of pain in my side reminded me that he'd done a pretty fine job of beating me up. He eyed me, then quickly looked away. For a sickening moment, I thought he was actually going to apologise. "Anyway, I broke your nose."

"And I broke your ribs," he snapped, hands clenching like he was considering fighting me again.

"Yeah, but you were aiming for my balls."

Silence. He stared at me, gawping, and then we both collapsed, bursting into laughter. It was like a dam breaking, the wall of hysteria surging forth to consume everything in its path. My ribs ached, and even so I couldn't hold back the laughter any more than I could stop the tide. And every time we managed to get the ourselves under control, one of us would let a snort escape like a trapped fart, and we were both lost again.

"D...Did you see the guard's face?" I managed, and this finally stemmed the flood.

Armande wiped his eyes, took a hitching breath. "You shouldn't have done that."

"Fuck me, you're welcome."

"Don't think I ain't grateful. But you still shouldn't have done it. He was just going to kick me around a bit and have done." He shrugged as it that hardly mattered. "I've had worse, and he's pretty lazy. But if he gets his hands on you, he'll skin you alive."

And with that my humour fled. None of it seemed funny any more. "You're serious?"

"He's a bastard. Not as bad as some of 'em, but he's bad enough."

I squeezed my eyes shut, wrapped my arms around my legs. _Fuck this town,_ I thought again. _Fuck this wretched miserable little shithole. Didn't even want to come here in the first place._

Armande cleared his throat awkwardly. "Maybe it won't be that bad," he said. I lifted my head, found him watching me. "Did he see your face?"

"Don't think so."

"Well, even if he did you're pretty forgettable."

"Thanks."

"That's a good thing. No one'll remember you. Just another scrawny street kid." Armande gave a bright flash of his teeth. He smiled a lot back then. Not so much these days. "But best you keep your head down for a few days."

I kept quiet, stared at the rocks. Wasn't anywhere for me to go.

"How long you been in Bravil?" he asked.

"Only got here yesterday." I wiped off some of the mud and showed him the bottom of my feet, the grazed abrasions beneath the dirt. Some of the scabs had ripped off, the old grazes starting to bleed again. "I walked."

"Fuck me. Where from?"

"An inn on the back-road to Skingrad." I hesitated. "It's gone now."

"What do you mean 'gone'?"

I couldn't look at him. "Burned down." And no matter how hard I fought to keep the memories from rising up, the loss still hurt. "Didn't have nowhere else to go so I came here."

"You should've gone west."

I gave a bark of laughter, a traitorous tear making a break for it down my cheek. I didn't dare to wipe it away in case he laughed at me. "I know that now," I said, and my voice twisted with pain. I stared up at the sky as if I could somehow keep the tears in that way.

 _You coward_ , I thought. _You pathetic fucking coward._

"What's your name?" Armande asked. His voice wasn't gentle – Armande Christophe never did gentle – but he was studiously ignoring my tears and for that I was grateful.

I sniffed, wiped my snotty nose with my sleeve. "It's Jack. Short for Jackdaw. Like the bird."

"That's a stupid name."

I snorted. "Yeah, I wish I was called something sensible. Like _Armande_."

"Fuck off." But he was grinning.

"Used to be a nest of jackdaws near the inn," I explained. "I rescued one of their babies once. It had fallen out of its nest and broken its wing and its parents didn't want to know it no more."

"Yeah," Armande said, bitterly. "Ain't that always the fucking way?"

I wiped my nose again, drew in a ragged breath. "Anyway I took care of it. Fed it and nursed it back to health, and all that, and even started training it a bit with worms I dug up. Someone" – _Brandt_ – "started calling me Jackdaw and the name sort of stuck."

"What happened to the bird?" he asked.

"My aunt wrung its neck and baked it in a pie."

The silence stretched out. Armande stared at me, his mouth hanging open. Then he gave a splutter of disbelieving laughter. I glared at him, but he shook his head. "That's... That's _awful_."

"I know. I loved that bird."

"At least tell me you didn't eat the pie."

I sighed, closed my eyes. "It was food," I said. "What do you think?"

It had been so delicious I'd sneaked a second slice when Masha wasn't looking, devoured it cold behind the stables, the juices running down my chin. And then I'd cried for my poor dead jackdaw, even while I was wondering whether I'd get away with stealing a third slice.

"Fuck me." He shook his head. When he spoke again his voice was a little softer. "You were right, it is a Breton name. My mother was half-Breton."

"And your father was a Redguard?"

"No, he was an orc." His brows drew down over his eyes in mock severity. "Of course he was a fucking Redguard."

"Literally in this case," I said, earning myself a punch in the shoulder. " _Ow_. You know, that was the one part of me that didn't hurt."

"Well, don't talk about my mother that way."

"I was talking about your father." Then I grimaced. "Sorry."

"Nah. It's all right. My mother was... She was what she was. Just don't talk about her in front of Elise though."

"Or she'll kill me?"

He shook his head. "She'll _cry, w_ hich is much worse. So try not to talk about her. Or mention mothers at all if you can help it."

"I won't. Your mother, is she still...?"

"Alive?" He shrugged. "Far as I know. Somewhere. And my father was a sailor and a good one, so I 'spect he is too. Not that it makes any difference. I might as well be an orphan for all the good it does me. Your parents?"

"Dunno," I said, and that was that.

In Bravil at that time of the year the rain didn't stay away for long and a sudden cloud-burst sent people running for cover. Armande jabbed me painfully in my ribs. "Coast should be clear now. Come on." We scrambled up, and I followed his cautious route around the edge of the chapel.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe." He thought about this for a moment. "Well, safeish. Nowhere's really safe in Bravil."

"Nowhere's really safe anywhere."

He grunted in agreement.

He lead me to a shack, tucked away at the side of a tannery. The side street, as I later learned, was known locally as 'Shitbrook Alley', and it's rare to find a street more accurately named. The stench was overwhelming, and barely eased off once we were inside, where a snoring shirtless Imperial with a paunch and too many scars lay stretched out on a broken bed, one corner of which rested on a mouldering upturned crate with 'East Empire Company' stencilled on the side. Armande led me up a steep ladder into the attic space. Brey and Elise were crammed inside, along with the piglet, so apparently Armande hadn't been lying about that. The pig grunted in porcine bliss as Elise scratched its belly, her cheek resting on its belly like it was a puppy. She didn't stop scratching, but her gaze flicked questioningly to Armande, who shrugged.

Brey, who was counting out the coins I'd stolen into several less than even piles, glared at me.

"What's he doing here?"

"He helped me. He's staying here for a bit," Armande said. "Give him his money back."

"Eh?"

"You deaf, Brey? He helped me while you lot fucked off. He got to the purse first, so it's his, and we don't steal from each other. Give it him."

"But–"

" _Brey_."

Brey's eyes narrowed. "Fucksake." But he scooped the coins together with an irritated flourish.

I don't think they were expecting me to speak. I wasn't expecting it myself, to be honest. "Give me my share," I said. "And split the rest yourselves."

They all stared at me. Brey and Elise looked like they weren't entirely sure I was sane.. But there was a look in Armande's eyes that might have been respect. "You sure?"

No, of course I wasn't fucking sure. But it felt right, so I nodded.

"We have to give two-thirds to Tertius," Armande said, jerking his head towards the hatch. A rasping snore made the wooden walls vibrate, made my teeth rattle in my gums.

And now I was even less sure but I shrugged.

Armande gestured to Brey, whose glared at me from under his falling sheaf of hair, before he set about redividing the coins. And although his fingers were short and thick they moved with a deceptive speed. His eyes darted towards me in a way that suggested he'd already pocketed some coins when Elise hadn't been looking, and he'd been hoping to pocket a few more. When I didn't look away, he shot me a look of pure loathing.

I grinned back, kept watching his hands.

And while I watched, Armande rested his hand on my arm and leaned closer. "Why?" he asked, his voice lowered.

I shrugged. "Well, it _was_ your pig."

* * *

 **A/N: As always, thank you for reading. All comments, particularly constructive criticism, are highly appreciated.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling and ZadArchie for betaing.**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

" _Bravil is one of the most charming towns in Cyrodiil, sparkling in her simple beauty, illustrious by her past. No visit to the southern part of the Imperial Province is complete without a walk along Bravil's exciting river port, a talk with her friendly native children, and, of course, in the tradition of the village, a whispered word to the famous statue of the Lucky Old Lady_."

– _Daughter of the Niben_ , by Sathyr Longleat

Four years of my life I spent in Bravil, running with the river-rats that swarmed along the Larsius.

Armande had been right about the guard. I held my breath the first time I ran into him, but he didn't recognise me. It almost hurt my feelings, to think I was so utterly forgettable.

 _Forgettable_. My entire life summed up in one bastarding word.

I came to know every member of the Bravil Watch by sight, and could recognise them by their gait from a distance, know whether they were arseholes, or kindly, or dangerous. Most of them were just people – so long as they were on their own the worst you'd get would be a clip around the ear – but a couple of them were complete fucking bastards, like Pellis, the captain of the guard, and Jory, the guard I'd seen with the Altmer woman on my first day in town. Pellis was fat and lazy, but Jory liked to get his hands dirty. He liked to _hurt_.

There were at least ten other thieves' nests that I knew of, scattered all over Bravil and every one paid bribes to the guards to look the other way. We worked our fingers until they bled to steal or scavenge or salvage what we could, Tertius would gouge us for everything he could get, and then he was gouged in turn when Captain Pellis collected his dues. Even the castle steward took a cut to look the other way. And it wasn't only the thieves paying a tithe. The shopkeepers paid their share, as did the whores, although theirs wasn't paid in Septims, but in flesh: arse and mouth and cunt.

This was the place that became my world – this corrupt stinking cesspit on the mouth of the Larsius. I ran Bravil until I knew its warrens and stews and ratways as well as I knew my own hands. And I learned other things too, chiefly how not to get myself killed.

Armande taught me a thing or two, but I learned far more from Elise. She was vicious and without exception the dirtiest fighter I have ever met in my life. She didn't know how to stop. She'd bite and rip, scratch at our eyes with her sharp little nails, like a kitten that hadn't learned to retract its claws. She tore a gash in a boy's eyelid once, almost blinding him, bit a chunk out of another girl's cheek.

These were play fights, you understand. They were supposed to be _games_.

Like I said, _vicious,_ and after the girl got her cheek bitten, hardly anyone wanted to play at fighting with her any more.

Except for me.

Most of what I know about fighting – real fighting, tooth and claw, desperate, to the death fighting – I learned from Elise. She taught me how to fight against an opponent who really did want me dead. If it wasn't for her, I think I would have been dead many times over.

I owe her my life.

~o~O~o~

Unlike most thieves, who tend to be nightingales rather than larks, Elise and I were both early risers. We'd wake with the dawn, easily dodge the yawning sore-footed guards, and scale the town wall. On a clear day you could just about see the White-Gold Tower in the distance, although it was usually shrouded in fog and drizzling rain.

She knew a tender-hearted baker with a daughter about her age, who would often take pity on her, and give her a loaf of bread. Usually it would be the stale day-old stuff, and sometimes it would be so dry we had to soak it in milk or beer before we could eat it. But every now and then he'd be in a soft mood, and give her a loaf fresh from the oven, still warm and steaming when she broke it apart. We'd carefully divide it into three and devour our pieces while staring out at the waking world, the third piece set carefully aside for Armande.

A wise man once told me I'd spent most of my life searching for a family to replace the one I'd never had. He might have been shit-faced at the time, but I think there was some truth to his words.

Armande and Elise and me: from that very first day it was always the three of us. I never quite knew what Elise was to me – I never had the chance to learn – but Armande became, and to this day remains, my brother. He stood at my side when I married my wife, and during the long years of my exile the loss of his friendship was the only thing that came close to the heartache of losing Millona. I'd found myself that family, that home, and for a little while as squalid and wretched as it was, it might have been enough. For another man it probably would have been... But I longed for something more.

A house with a crackling fire in the grate, my own room with a real bed-frame, a woman singing while a small boy played with toy soldiers on the warm stone hearth.

I'd thought Armande would laugh at me when I told him this dream of mine, the two of us stretched out on the roof of a shack, staring up at the moons and listening to the Altmer singing. It had been a balmy night, a rare summer evening with a thousand lights skimming through the sky, a shower of golden fire that seemed sent by the gods themselves. Instead he thought for a minute, his head pillowed on his upturned palm. "Sounds nice," he said finally. "I think I'd like that too."

And though he hadn't laughed, my heart ached, my throat sore with tears. Back then I didn't cry quite as much as Elise, but I wasn't far off. It may seem as though I've toughened up now, but it's only because my well of tears dried up long ago.

"As if we could," I said. "Not like we can afford to do a bloody thing with Tertius stealing all our fucking money." My voice was going through the process of breaking, and it twisted at the end, a sudden high-pitched fluting, which made Armande grin at me.

"Are your balls ever going to drop?"

I tried to slap weakly at his chest, but couldn't quite reach, and I was too lazy to move, as if the heat of the day had collected in my bones like lead. I could almost have fallen asleep there on the roof, staring up at the glorious lights in the sky.

"Maybe we still could," he mused after a while.

"How? At least Tertius deals with the guards."

"Yeah, but..." He made a sound in his throat, a grunt of frustration. "Who says we have to stay in Bravil?"

"What?"

He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Who says we have to stay in this shithole? Not like there's anything to keep us here, is there? We could go anywhere. The Imperial City maybe. It ain't that far."

A ripple of fear ran through me. "It's far enough. And it's dangerous out there." A flash of a memory: hard eyes, and the crushing weight of a man weighing me down. Cold wet leather on my neck.

"We're dangerous," Armande said, grinning.

"No, we're not. And you're a fucking idiot if you think we are." The weight of the sky pressed me against the roof, the air almost too warm to breath. I tightened myself into a ball, shivering despite the heat. Something was missing, and it took me a moment to realise the Altmer had stopped singing.

That meant she had a customer, and normally I would have tried to picture it, summoned up the image of her in my head, her slender graceful golden limbs, the candlelight glinting on her skin, but now all I could think of was the tightness of the breath in my chest, that feeling of being crushed.

Armande frowned at me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing, I just..." I took a breath. "Who's to say the Imperial City's any better than here?"

"It's bigger. And cleaner." A flash of his teeth. "And richer. There'd be more to steal."

"And I bet the guards are harder to bribe."

He subsided, frowning. "Yeah... Well, maybe it's a stupid idea."

My gut twisted. At least Armande was trying to figure out a way of bettering our lot, rather than curling into a ball and hiding and wishing for something more. My cowardice was a fist around my throat, choking off my breath. But fuck it, I was just a boy, and a boy who knew what predators lay in wait along the roads of Cyrodiil. The question was whether they were any worse that the predators in Bravil.

 _I'm not a coward_ , I thought. _I will not be a coward_. "Maybe not," I said. My voice fluted again, and I grimaced, but this time Armande ignored it. He was listening. "There might be another way."

"Go on."

I closed my eyes. "What if we could free ourselves of Pellis, maybe even Jory too, without leaving Bravil?" My words came slowly: the idea was little more than a half-formed spark, but strengthening as it gradually took root.

Armande's eyes darkened. "You mean... kill 'em?"

"No. _Gods_ no. Just get rid of them somehow."

"And then someone else would step into their place and it'd be the same thing all over again. Maybe not as bad, but–"

"Not if we could pick the person who gets the job." I already had the person in mind: Baral, the half-Redguard who had been the first person I met when I came to Bravil. Who'd given me all the coins from his pocket out of sympathy for a young boy who must have looked frightened and lost and in pain. Out of all of the guard, he was the only one I knew for certain wasn't crooked. Talk was he'd been one of us once, so he was sympathetic to the plight of the river-rats.

"Okay, but how the hell would we do that? Unless you've got an in with the count that I don't know about."

"Course I don't."

"So how do we do it?" Armande pressed.

"I don't know. _Yet_. But there's a way to do it, I know there is. We just have to figure out how to swing it, that's all. Make damned sure it goes the way we want."

Armande lay back down and for a while we watched the stars in silence. "If anyone could do it," he said, his voice so soft I wasn't even sure he was even talking to me, "it's you, Jack."

"That ain't true."

"Yeah, it damned well is. You're the smartest of all of us. You see things no one else does. You _think_ differently, even." He looked at me, his eyes dark. "One day you'll get yourself that house, with a fire in the grate, and a woman singing. In fact, I know you will."

"And you?"

"Fuck knows." He sighed. "I think I'll be a river-rat to the end of my days. Or I might become a pirate after all. It's in my blood. My da was a sailor, after all, and my mother had plenty of sailors in her." I snorted, but Armande continued as if he hadn't heard me. "You, though... you're meant for something more. I just hope she's pretty."

"Who?"

"Your woman. Or at least that she can cook. Ugly fucker like you it's probably too much to ask for both."

~o~O~o~

Armande was right about my scheming. I did see things differently and I was tired of taking beatings, of watching my _friends_ take beatings at the hands of bigger stronger men.

So I watched and I planned, and around six months after I'd first arrived in Bravil, I set to work. At several quiet spots we drove metal spikes into the town walls, created footholds where a boy who was quick and agile enough could swarm up without being seen.

And we created other hiding spots too, dug shallow holes beneath the shacks to scramble into , placed buckets filled with slurry or stagnant river water along convenient escape routes. Even the angriest guard or shopkeeper would think twice about pursuing you if it meant a bucketful of rotting offal in the face.

I've been back to Bravil since, and out of curiosity went to check on the old escape routes. Many of them still exist. Some of them are still in use, although not so often as they once were.

Believe it or not, Bravil is a kinder place now. Corruption is still rife amongst the guard, but the Thieves' Guild has a presence in the town now, and the river-rats are under their protection. I made damn sure of that.

And I survived.

I even developed a taste for Larsius eels, although to the best of my knowledge I'm the only non-Khajiit who ever has. It was an acquired taste – a taste you had to earn – and earn it I did, choking down each sour mouthful, nibbling at the sharp bones because it would take too long to pick them out one by one, trying not to gag at my body's insistence that what I was eating was unwholesome.

And the flavour lingered. Turned out, that was part of its charm. I came to crave both the wriggling slippery elvers and the smoked eel-flesh which still bore the sour taint of the river, and since the Khajiit was delighted at the novelty of an Imperial boy eating Larsius eels he usually shared them with me for free.

Not everything in Bravil was bad. In late summer, everyone made the exodus out of the town to escape the stifling heat and the threat of late summer plagues. The wealthy would retreat to their country estates, and for those who weren't wealthy there was always plenty of itinerant work available in the farms of the Nibenay valley helping with the harvest.

Since there was even less than usual about worth stealing, we'd trek out to the bay and spend our days on the banks of the Niben. An Argonian had told me there was a spot in the river which was bottomless and filled with treasure, so I'd spend hours diving down to try to find it, then finally admit defeat, and lie basking in the sun, the breeze cooling my wet skin. We'd slaughter mud crabs and cook them over open fires, cracking open their shells and prising past the inedible dead man's claws for the meagre scraps of succulent flesh secreted within.

I taught Armande how to swim – he claimed most sailors didn't know how; if you fell in you were probably buggered anyway, so what was the point of learning? My method of teaching was to push him in and laugh, yelling instructions from the safety of the bank, while he spluttered around, screaming, until he realised he wasn't even out of his depth and stood up, looking shame-faced. He got his revenge: he learned quickly, and it wasn't long before he could swim faster than me. I had my fair share of dunkings: the two of us fighting for the upper hand, scrabbling at each other, while Elise shrieked in wild joy from the bank.

I wasn't stupid enough to wrestle with _her_ in the water. She would have drowned me without a second thought, even if she would have cried about it afterwards.

It must have been a sight in late summer, the parentless river-rats of Bravil splashing and shrieking along the banks of the bay, and every one of us naked and half-feral.

Do I sound as if I miss those days? Perhaps in a way I do.

I confess I'm rather fond of Bravil. After Anvil, which I love for personal reasons since it's the first and only place where I was ever truly happy, it's my favourite of all the cities and towns in Cyrodiil.

I'm sure you don't think much of Bravil. Nobody does. Everyone thinks of it as the cesspit on the Larsius, where a wrong turn in the darkening twilight (or even on a particularly overcast day) could very well mean a dagger in your back. Skooma dens, and gangs of river-rat children, swarming across the banks of the river like a flock of gulls.

Bravil is what it is. It doesn't hide its face behind clean streets like Cheydinal, masking the rot beneath the surface. Bravil stinks in high summer, and in winter the foul miasmas rise off the marshes and poison the very air. The first few months I was there, three of my fellow river-rats sickened and died. No funerals for them; their bodies were handed over to the local gravedigger to dispose of. The gods only knew what he did with the corpses because he sure as hell didn't bury them. He either took a rowing boat out into the marsh and turfed them off over the side for the slaughterfish, or gave them to a necromancer in the guild in return for a bribe and no questions asked on either side.

It's where I fell in what I thought was love for the first time with the Altmer whore. She sang in my dreams, her voice given substance, coiling around my body like molten gold. Its touch heated my skin until it was almost burning, until a clenched fist in my chest burst open, and I woke to damp clothes and the sharp smell of seed.

Armande, Brey and I would spend our evenings sitting on a platform with a view of the Altmer's shack, passing a bottle of sour wine back and forth and doing our best to imagine what might be transpiring within. I hadn't warmed much to Brey, nor him to me, but this was one of the few pastimes in which we shared a common interest, and our fascination with the Altmer temporarily bonded us together.

I never knew how the Altmer could have come to be living in Bravil, making her living as a whore. She lived with a Dunmer woman, the weeping shadow I'd seen on my first full day in Bravil, and it was common knowledge that they were more than friends. They never tried to hide it; would sit on display outside their shack, the Dunmer's head resting in the Altmer's lap, her hair spilling out in waves of glossy black. It was an image I could not get out of my head; the thought of ash-dark and golden limbs entwined, obsidian hair threaded with gold. It lingered, filthy images shooting through my mind at the most inopportune moments. At that age I was, I'm afraid to say, a dirty-minded little shit.

The Dunmer made me nervous. She never ventured further than the wooden platform, and rarely even left the shack. She was from Morrowind; our ways were not her ways, and I believe she loathed the lot of us.

Perhaps she had good reason to. Her skin bruised easily, showed every contusion, every mark, as a black welt. A dark bruise on her cheekbone, another that encircled her forearm. The grip of a hand around her throat left a necklace of fingermarks around her throat, an unwanted gift from a lover that she flaunted out of contempt.

~o~O~o~

For a time I thought my voice would never break, but it lost its softness, became surprisingly deep considering my slender frame. Although even that too was changing. As I got better at my profession, became more adept at picking pockets and hiding in the shadows, I ate better, began gradually to lose a the pinched look of starvation. And all that climbing and scrambling over rooftops meant I was stronger than I looked, my arms roped with muscle.

It was one of those sweltering summers, with the sun a hole torn in the sky through which we could see clear to Aetherius, and the water in the bay the only respite from the unremitting heat. Clothes were a long-forgotten memory and my body tanned to a deep nut-brown. Diving beneath the surface. I imagined the cooling water as the Altmer's hands running lazily through my hair, and I rolled on my back beneath the surface, staring up at the distorted world. And then I surfaced, breaking back into the world of air. Saw Elise naked at the side of the lake, still as skinny as a boy except for the buds of breasts. At my sharp startled gasp she glanced around, and for a few moments both of us were frozen in place. My cheeks burned, and because I didn't know what else to do I dove back underwater, stayed there until my lungs burned and I was forced to come up, gasping for air.

After that she didn't go naked any more.

We were growing up. All of us. We weren't children any more, playing knuckle-bones in the mud, but hardened, sharpened by the whetstones of our world. And the older we got, the less tolerant people became. The guards grew more vicious, shopkeepers less forgiving, and our petty rivalries didn't seem quite so petty. That same year in late Last Seed a boy held another's face down in the muck while he bucked and struggled, and eventually choked to death, his mouth filled with mud like an over-brimming cup.

And Elise withdrew still further. Crammed into that tiny attic space I'd often wake to see her fast asleep, her face too close to mine, her fist curled beneath her chin. And I'd roll over, turn my back on her, a strange twist of disquiet in my gut. I wasn't the only person who had started to see her differently. I'd seen Brey, the way he watched her when he thought we weren't looking.

She was an honourary boy only up until the moment she started to grow breasts.

~o~O~o~

It was the sort of night when everything changed. A storm was gathering, the air dense and muggy. Sweat trickled down the length of my spine, and my shirt clung to my skin. I itched all over and longed for the cool waters of the bay. We all reeked of sweat and smoke, and every time I moved, I could smell the stink clinging to the hair in my armpits.

Is it any wonder that being clean is so important to me now?

We sat and waited, longing for the moment when the storm broke. Listened to the Altmer woman singing an old Nibenean folk-song, passing a bottle of beer between us. It was well-flavoured, and heavy with hops, the taste of it lingering on my tongue, so strong it left me light-headed. I knew the song well; it was one that Brandt had used to sing, and if it hadn't been for the beer, I wouldn't have joined in, but I was already well on the way to being drunk, and I felt like singing. My voice was uncertain at first, but growing stronger, bolder as her voice responding to mine, altering subtly to better match my own. It was, I thought then, almost like a dance.

Armande and Brey raised themselves up on their elbows, listening, and Elise sat hidden in the shadows beneath the sloping, shingled roof.

It's a familiar theme throughout my life, pretending to be someone I'm not, and I'm sick to death of it now, but then it was new to me, and more intoxicating than the alcohol, this realisation that I could be anyone I chose if I could only persuade others of that fact.

And when the song finished and silence followed, broken only by the sound of a dog barking, a roar of laughter from a distant inn, I reached for the bottle of beer, my throat sore.

Armande nudged me, making the beer spill down my chin. "You know what?"

"What?" I passed the bottle to Brey, aware of Elise sitting on the shingles somewhere behind and below me.

"If you ever had a chance–" Armande snatched the bottle from Brey, and took a swig. "–And I'm not saying you do, it's now."

"A chance at what?" The beer was making me slow. I felt drunk, and not just from the alcohol, but from the silvery moonlight, which spilled over the world, making even Bravil look beautiful. Brey snorted, and warmth crept up my cheeks. I was glad for the way the darkness sapped the colour from the world; it meant they couldn't see my cheeks and how they burned.

"For a clever bastard you're thick as pigshit sometimes," Armande said. " _Go_ , you idiot. Say something to her." And when I failed to move, he set his feet against my side and started trying to kick me off the platform, until I swore at him, and swung myself out of reach.

"Fine," I said. "I'm going." And still I hesitated.

"He fucking won't, the coward," Brey said. In the end it was this, Brey's casual contempt, that spurred me on.

"Watch me, then, you cunts," I said, and swung under the railing, took a running jump across to the next platform, scrambled up over the roof and down the other side. From there, I could see the lantern set outside the Altmer's house, a candle fluttering within a cage of glass and lead. My heart felt much the same. It was the Altmer, the sight of her, how her skin seemed to shine like moon-glow.

I landed on her platform, making no sound, and hesitated, unsure what to do. I hadn't wanted to creep up on her, to frighten her. Moving quietly was a habit, one I still have never been able to truly rid myself of. So when she spoke, she startled me, because I'd assumed she hadn't heard me. I was wrong.

"So you're the singer," she said. "I thought it might have been. You have a fine voice, beggar-boy."

"You knew it was me?" I stepped out of the shadows into the circle of light cast by the lantern, feeling like a fool, awkward and out of step. Not that it would be my first time feeling like a drunken fool around a woman.

She turned to look at me, then stood and moved closer, her hair spilling over her shoulders, like shimmering silk. My hands ached to touch it. To touch her. Clean hair. Clean sweet-smelling skin, and I felt every itching inch of my own body, begrimed with filth and my own sweat.

"What's your name, boy?"

"Jack." I wondered whether the others were watching. Brey and Armande sniggering to themselves, while in their hearts they envied me. I wasn't certain they were right to, wasn't sure I wanted to be here any more. There was something about her eyes I didn't like. I remembered the way she'd hooded them when Jory had squeezed her breast, the sudden flash of rage on her face, and I found myself thinking of my mother, how terrified I'd been when she'd bade me come closer and how there wasn't a power on Nirn that could have prevented me from obeying.

I felt much the same way now.

"How old are you, Jack?"

It crossed my mind to lie to her, to claim I was older. We grew up fast, the children of Bravil, so perhaps it wasn't exactly lying. Just a differently framed version of the truth. And I was going to tell that different version of the truth, right up until the moment I heard my own voice say, "I don't know exactly. I think I'm fifteen."

"Fifteen." She breathed the word. "So very young."

 _Not that young_ , I thought, but the words curdled on my tongue. They're not so very long-lived the mer, their natural lifespan only two or three times that of a man, but at that time even a man's age seemed an eternity to me.

The kiss was brief and chaste, closed-lipped and cool. And still the memory of my dreams, of that golden substance snaking around me, made my cheeks burn hotter. A noise in the doorway, a shadow with glittering red eyes watching us. The Altmer turned her head, studied the Dunmer, and then she spoke without looking back at me. "Go home, beggar-boy."

"But–"

"Go home." Her hand pressed against my chest, and shoved me back into the shadows.

A heavy tread on the wooden steps, and I let the darkness veil me from view. Her visitor reeked of ale and sweat, and I suspected if he had seen me he would happily have wrung my neck.

"Good evening," the Altmer called out to Jory, her golden eyes lingering on where I was hidden in the shadows. "Make yourself welcome."

"It's been a long night." He reached into the doorway, pulled the Dunmer out into the light of the lantern, kissed her roughly.

"Then," the Dunmer said quietly, "let's not make it last any longer, _muthsera_." She took his hand, made to draw him inside the shack. He resisted, nodded to the Altmer.

"You too."

She shifted, her hair falling over her face. "Not together. You know we do not–"

"Did it sound like I was asking?" He smiled as he spoke, but the words were cold. The Dunmer bent her head and waited, and she wasn't so practised at concealing her emotions as her Altmer lover; her eyes were filled with fury. The Altmer moved to the lantern, pinched the flame out with finger and thumb, and Jory groaned softly as she went to him. A soft whispering voice, and I couldn't tell who it was whispering, but I could have sworn I'd heard that voice in my dreams. I forced my eyes open, saw the two of them twinned light and dark, before the door closed behind them, leaving me alone in the shadows, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure the bastard would have been able to hear it. My lips still felt chilled from the Altmer's kiss.

I moved from the shadows, slipped silently down the steps and through the dark stinking alleys. I passed a Breton retching into the overflowing gutter, the grunts of someone rutting with a whore round the back of an inn, and I moved amongst them unseen towards the shack I called home. The overhanging wooden platforms blocked out the moon and starlight, but I knew these alleys as well as I knew my own body and the darkness held no fears for me.

I would have been fine, were it not for a shadow detaching from beneath the struts of a staircase and slamming into me. I reacted on instinct, and twisting around, hooking an ankle beneath the attacker's. My shoulder slammed painfully into a wooden strut, but the body I fought with was a spitting bundle of rage, and in the darkness I fought for real, expecting the slash of a dagger across my throat at any moment. My hands clamped around bony wrists, and I pinned my attacker against the side of the shack with all of my weight, both of us breathless and panting in the darkness.

 _Elise._

She gave a furious wrench, but I was stronger than she was. It wasn't the first time I'd been forced to pin her down to protect myself.

"What in Oblivion did you do that for?" I asked.

"Let go of me, idiot." Her voice had thickened.

I adjusted my grip, grasping both her wrists in one hand. My other hand moved to her cheeks, felt wetness on her skin. "Have you been _crying_?"

"Let go!" Another desperate wrench from her, a choked sob emerging from her chest, and my gut twisted with a strange stab of an emotion I could not understand. A hot flash of memory, that time I'd seen her on the banks of Niben Bay.

I wanted to let go, but felt frozen. As if letting go would mean a knife in my chest, her teeth at my throat, but that was madness. Her body felt so slight against mine, pressed up against the wall. Harmless. And I felt stupid and useless and a total fucking bastard, because through the slats a glimmer of moonlight had picked out her eyes and they were glittering with tears.

"Godsdamn, I'm sorry..." I released her, and she shoved me away. I stumbled back, almost slipped in the mud, whacked my shoulder against the wooden struts of the staircase. _Again_. My retreat was blocked, and she was on me before I had time to react. I braced myself, but the blow came not from her fists or her nails. Instead she kissed me, the kiss clumsy and awkward and not nearly so chaste as the Altmer's. Her teeth clashed against mine, wet and clumsy and uncertain. I'd been expecting teeth, but not like this. And I reacted without thinking, pushed her away on instinct.

"What... what are you doing?"

Her breathing was thick with tears and fury. "Bastard," she hissed, and then she was gone, vanishing into the darkness.

"Elise, wait!" I sank against the wall, pushed my fingers back into my hair, thinking, _What the bloody fucking hell?_

No reply from anyone except for the retching Breton.

I felt rather like vomiting myself, and it took me a good while before I'd recovered enough composure to return home, where I found Armande playing knuckle-bones on his own.

"We're going to have to do something about Jory," he said. "I reckon you were in with a chance with the elf."

"Pretty sure I wasn't," I said. My voice sounded hollow, false. Armande shot me a narrow-eyed look, but said nothing more as I sat down on my bed roll, feeling like I'd been struck with a spell of burden. Exhaustion and fatigue seemed to make every muscle in my body ache. "Where's Elise?" I tried to keep my voice light, as if I had no particular reason to be asking, other than curiosity. The natural concern of a brother for his adopted little sister. Armande had turned back to the game of knuckle-bones. If he noticed something odd about my voice, he didn't show it.

"You know what she's like," he said. "Like a stray cat. She'll drag herself back eventually." Still something about the set of Armande's shoulder suggested he was worried about her too, but I didn't think it had anything to do with me. I'd've known it if it was. Watching him nervously, it occurred to me that Brey was missing too.

I opened my mouth, feeling slow and stupid. Where's Brey? I wanted to ask, but thank the Nine I kept my mouth shut for once.

~o~O~o~

Everything changed that night. It was as if the world shifted around us, breaking and remaking itself along new lines. That happens, you know, more often than we might think. Perhaps you've heard of the Warp in the West. Perhaps you even believe it happened. Most people don't, as a rule. They think it a myth.

Myself, I'm inclined to believe it did happen, because I too have been present at the rewriting of history. I have held an Elder Scroll in my hands and seen the warp and weft of the world, the countless billion possibilities arrayed before me.

Perhaps it happens far more often than we realise.

When Elise came back, she did not look at me, kept her head down as she dragged herself through the hatch in the attic floor. There were new marks on her arm, mud stains on her clothes, but they could have came from my fight with her. She barely responded to Armande's greeting and he darted a cautious curious look at her, worry etched around his eyes. But he said nothing more, and I said nothing at all. Pretended to be engrossed in the game of knuckle-bones instead. I know it was cowardly, but I'm not sure what I would have said if I could have found the courage to speak.

Brey returned not long after her. Neither of them looked at each other, and it was this that made it painfully clear that something had happened between them. I could feel Elise sneaking little glances at me, and I couldn't concentrate on the game. So instead I curled up in the bedroll and pretended to be asleep.

In other words, I hid.

 _It doesn't matter,_ I told myself. But I could feel Elise's lips on mine, her shove against my chest knocking me sprawling in the mud.

 _Nothing has to change._ So I told myself, repeating the over and over again, until I fell asleep.

As if I had the power to freeze the world about me, to prevent those grains of sand from tumbling through the hourglass. As if I could have contrived a way to keep the three of us together if I hadn't been so entranced by the Altmer, so blinded by her golden skin and hair and eyes that I couldn't see what was standing right in front of me? A girl who did not think of herself as my sister, but as something else entirely.

As for the Altmer, I said everything changed that night, and so it did. They found Jory in the morning, his naked bone-white body sprawled across the filthy bed, the feather mattress soaked with his blood. When they turned him over, it was said the gash where his throat had been cut was so deep his spine could be seen, and the Altmer and the Dunmer had fled.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you to tafferling and ZadArchie for betaing. Again, all comments are hugely appreciated.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Please note there are some homophobic slurs used in this chapter. Thanks to tafferling and ZadArchie for betaing, and to you for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

 _"The castle is the only sturdy, stone-built dwelling in Bravil. It is nowhere as dirty and ill-furnished as the timber shacks of the people, but it is still little better than the houses of the poorest paupers in Anvil or the Imperial City. Count Regulus Terentius, from a respectable family, once a noted tournament champion, is now widely recognized by his people as a drunken wastrel and ne'er-do-well. And his son, Gellius Terentius, is a strutting peacock who cultivates the society of crimelords and skooma-eaters."_

 _\- Guide to Bravil,_ by Alessia Ottus

If we'd thought Jory's death might improve our lot we were mistaken. If anything, things got worse. The Watch was angry. One of their own had been murdered, and even the kindliest amongst them, who might have turned a blind eye to a scrawny boy snatching an apple from a fruit stall, hardened their hearts. It didn't help that we weren't children any longer.

That past year I had shot up in height. I might not have had a man's build yet, but I was no longer a runtish boy. Bravil was a hard enough place for children, but for those caught in the limbo between childhood and adulthood, it was far crueller. I have plenty of scars that can testify to that.

I hadn't known what a beating was until after I turned fifteen and Pellis caught me down a back alley, his mood sour enough that he set aside his habitual laziness and got his hands dirty. He left me pissing blood for a week.

Brey and Armande have similar stories. And still we were the lucky ones.

There were no beatings for Elise, but the threat of something worse. She'd never had been the type to keep her head down, and it was that which drew attention more than her looks. Her features were too sharp and her eyes too scornful for her to be described as beautiful.

I was with her when one of the guards had whistled as she approached, called out something filthy that I will not repeat here. And when she ignored him he stepped deliberately back into her path. He tried to make it look like an accident, grinned in mock-apology while his friend sniggered.

Elise shoved him away. "Watch what you're fucking doing, cocksucker."

The first guard held up his hands. "Hey now. Don't be like that, girl. It was an accident."

"Oh yeah? Suck your friend's cock by accident too, did you?"

His expression darkened, good humour evaporating. "You've got a mouth on you, bitch."

Her eyes gleamed. The stupid fucker had walked right into that one, but she'd never get the chance to retort, because he clamped his hand around her wrist and jerked her close.

"Hey!" I started towards them, moving more out of instinct than genuine intent. The thought of me taking them on was laughable, and the second guard swung towards me, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Stay out of this, boy."

"She didn't do anything," I protested.

"She swore at us."

"Yeah, and last I checked that ain't illegal."

"Bitch threatened us," the first guard said.

"Like fuck I did," Elise spat. Her face contorted in pain as he gripped her hair, wrenched her head around. And bent his head to hiss something in her ear. She jerked, fighting his grip, then froze at whatever he was saying, a flare of terrified panic crossing her face. All her bravado fled, the whites of her eyes showing like a wild animal's. And then he shoved her away with a derisive snort, spat in the mud as she scrambled to her feet and shoved past me.

"Elise-" I glanced back at the guards, clenched my fists in helpless fury when the first guard gave a mocking wave of his hand to indicate I was free to take my leave. "Fuckers." But I said it quietly, under my breath.

When I caught up with Elise, intending to ask her if she was all right, and what the arsehole had said to her that had upset her so badly, she turned on me, her eyes dark with fury and contempt and hot burning shame. Whatever I'd been about to say crumbled to ashes in my mouth. She waited, then gave a scornful scoff, and wrenched her hand out of my grip.

"I'm going to murder that bastard," she said. "Him and the next fucker who so much as looks at me sideways..." But her voice was trembling, and she turned her back on me; she'd always been too quick to cry. I took a step backwards, knowing if I tried to comfort her now, I'd be the one she'd fly at. Better to wait, bide my time until she calmed down. Her rage was usually short-lived, burning fierce and hot, but quickly doused.

Finally she glanced at me, a pleading look in her eye. "Don't tell Brey."

"Tell Brey what?"

She grinned. "You're such a cunt."

"Takes one to know one," I said, and earned myself a punch on my arm. It was half-hearted though, because she was gazing off down the street. The incoherent rage had gone, but I liked the grim expression in her eyes even less.

She'd kill the bastard, she'd said, and I believed her.

We had to do something.

It made me think again of the idea I'd had – that idle fantasy of somehow getting Pellis replaced. I'd almost forgotten about it in the passing months, my attention almost wholly focused on avoiding beatings and trying to ignore whatever the fuck it was that had developed between Elise and Brey. Except that living in such close quarters made it hard to ignore. Almost impossible, in fact, when I found myself waking in the night to Brey's soft breathy grunting once too often.

It's an agonising choice: whether to lie still and pretend to be asleep, try not to listen to the sound of their awkward fumblings in the dark while praying that Armande might wake up and beat the shit out of Brey, or whether instead you should stir and roll over noisily in the hopes that they might stop.

They never bloody stopped. There's little shame in thieves' nests.

And Armande slept like a fucking log. Nothing ever woke him up.

~o~O~o~

"Jack's got a plan." It was Armande who broke the lazy silence, the four of us basking in the sunlight on the riverbank in the last days of summer, watching a fishing boat manoeuvrer along the silted up river. I winced, wishing he'd kept his fucking mouth shut, because what little I had, the tiny seed I'd been nurturing over the last couple of months, was nothing like a plan.

"What sort of plan?" Elise was leaning back against Brey, and he had his arm slung around her chest in a way that I might have taken for casual if I hadn't seen his eyes when he did it: how they'd shifted to me, making sure that I saw, that I recognised it as a mark of ownership. Elise hadn't noticed, and probably wouldn't have cared if she had. Her gaze was intent on a silvery spider crawling over her bare toes.

"How to get rid of Pellis." Armande's voice was strained. He'd been badly beaten a week or so back, and although his ribs were mostly healed, he was still in some pain. I never knew quite how much, only that it was much worse than he was letting on.

"Easy," Brey said. "We do to him what happened to Jory. That whore had the right idea."

"You want to spend the rest of your life rotting in prison?" Armande said. "And that's assuming the guards don't just cut you down on the spot. The mood they've been in lately, they'd probably just lie and claim you resisted."

"They wouldn't even have to lie," Elise said, lazily tilting her head back to look at Brey. "You _would_ resist. And they'd kill you."

His lips twisted. He looked like he wanted to argue further, but she was right. We almost always took the beating rather than going to jail, because going to jail would just mean more beatings or worse. There'd been a few boys got hauled off to jail who never came back. More than a few lately in fact.

It took me a moment to realise I'd been sitting in silence staring at a raft of detritus floating along the surface of the river. They were waiting for me to speak, even Brey despite his sneer. It was a strange disconcerting feeling and I wasn't sure I liked it

"We're not going to kill anyone," I said. "We're not murderers."

"Speak for yourself," Elise said, quietly. "If I got my hands on Pellis... If I could slit his throat without anyone seeing me-"

"We're not murderers," I said, lifting my gaze to hers. "You kill him, nothing changes. The steward's got a hand in this, and the steward hires the guards. You kill Pellis and who do you think he'll hire, someone decent or another crooked bastard? Maybe even someone worse, someone more like Jory."

Her eyes glittered. Brey bent his head closer to hers, and whispered something in her ear. She gave a furious little hiss at whatever he had said.

"You know he's right," Armande said.

I nodded. "Pellis is easy, but getting rid of him ain't enough. We have to find some way of taking him and the steward out at the same time. That's the hard part."

"Okay." Elise closed her eyes against the light of the sun. "So how do we do that?"

"Yeah." I sighed. "Haven't quite figured that bit out yet."

"Armande said you had a plan," Brey said. "Was he talking bollocks then?"

 _More or less_. "I've got some ideas. Nothing that could exactly be called a plan yet."

"Fucksake." He rolled his eyes. "So Armande's full of shit?"

"You've known him longer than I have. If you haven't learned he's full of shit yet then I think you've got bigger problems."

"Armande is going to kick the crap out of the pair of you if you don't stop talking about him like he isn't here," Armande called over. Elise laughed, shading her eyes from the sun, and Brey flashed a rare smile, bent down to kiss the top of her head.

It always unnerved me to see the two of them together, how it had changed them both. She'd softened Brey, sanded off his bitter spiteful edges, and it made him easier to be around: most of the time, anyway, when he wasn't being insufferably smug. And he'd been good for Elise as well; she seemed calmer, less feral.

Mostly Armande and I pretended not to notice them. We'd both taken to sleeping on the platform of the shack on warm nights; the attic room was too airless, we claimed, although sleeping outside was little more than an invitation for the gnats to feast and gorge on every inch of exposed skin. And I told myself I was happy for them, and ignored the snake of envy that coiled through me when I saw them together, and on the nights when it was raining too hard to sleep outside, I buried my face in the bedroll and pretended to be asleep, while the muffled noises – the faint slapping sound of skin on skin, the sharp hiss of an indrawn breath, the sound of something wet – made me burn with embarrassment and shame and, yes, I admit it, arousal.

But I wasn't quite so practised at lying to myself then as I am these days, and the truth was I hated that Elise now seemed entwined with Brey as she never had been with me or Armande. I hated him for stealing her away from us, for snatching my spot in my tight-knit little family. The spot I'd stolen from him in the first place.

Gods, we were all such arseholes.

~o~O~o~

That autumn was when I met Calvus Varo for the first time. I already knew him by sight, since he had business with Tertius from time to time. It was one of those mizzling days in early autumn, only early afternoon, but the glowering, gloomy sky had brought an early twilight. I was trying my luck in the market, but it was too quiet for a boy like me to ply my trade. There weren't enough customers to distract the watchful stall holders, to provide cover for a boy with itchy fingers and a hungry belly.

While I never much liked the thought of being invisible, of being forgotten, when your livelihood depends on your not being noticed, you start to see it in a different light.

A row of cold meat pies sat on the butcher's stall, the thick suet pastry going soggy in the damp air. He'd never sell them all, not now, and they were bloody horrible anyway. I'd stolen enough of those fucking pies to know that I'd be doing him a favour. But favour or not, the ungrateful bastard still chased me away, brandishing a cleaver like he was Ysgramor himself, and I a recalcitrant elf.

I slunk away, knowing I should probably call it a day. It was all part of the ebb and flow of my life in Bravil; some days were good, and others hopeless, and this was one of the hopeless ones. I should take cover before my bad luck turned disastrous. That's what a sensible young thief would have done, but since when have I ever been sensible?

The butcher had pissed me off, and I'd set my heart on having one of those pies if it killed me. I waited a little, watched a little, cheeks dampened by the rain, until the church bell called the hours and there came a lunchtime rush. Not much, not many, but enough to distract the butcher, especially when an idiot who'd had one too many lunchtime ales in the Lodge fell over in the mud.

A handy distraction but an unnecessary one, since the butcher had a customer to distract him: Calvus Varo, smiling with strained politeness as the butcher laughed at the poor beleaguered drunken bastard slipping on his arse in the mud again. I snuck a pie from the stall, leaving a spreading grease stain on the waxed paper, and found a spot to watch, because I wasn't in a sensible mood and one of my most prominent traits as a boy was nosiness.

I rarely saw Calvus in the market, rarely saw him buying meat. He was a bookish sort, shabby and weary, with grubby grey robes and a kindly face. Shoulders hunched from too long spent hunched over a desk, eyes weakened by straining to read by the dimming light of a dying candle.

Just another pinch-penny scribe – I'm sure you know the type – buying meat for his Middas repast.

Only when the butcher named his price Calvus blinked rapidly and cleared his throat. "Perhaps," he said, staring intently at the ground, "a little less?"

The butcher rolled his eyes upwards, scooped up a handful of meat from the scales with his bare hand and slapped it back on the counter. Then he laboriously reweighed the remaining meat, with deliberate and emphatic movements to show Calvus what an inconvenience this was. "Eleven Septims, five coppers?" he said finally, raising his eyebrows in an expression of mocking concern.

Calvus counted through the coins in his purse, then nodded, his smile weak under the weight of the butcher's contemptuous gaze. "Yes, yes, that should be fine," he said, although a faint tremble in his voice suggested otherwise, and I guessed he simply couldn't bear to go through the humiliating rigmarole once more.

His eyes never were good, although I didn't realise at the time. I didn't understand why he hadn't noticed what I could see quite clearly, the butcher's little finger hooked over the edge of the scale.

I hadn't planned on saying anything, but as I sucked gluey pastry from the crevices of my upper molars and watched the old man's hard-earned coins tumbling into the deep jingling pockets of the butcher's apron, I heard my own voice say, "He's trying to cheat you."

They both stared at me. The butcher's expression was more of a glare, tempered by faint alarm, his eyes narrowed in feigned outrage. "Take no notice of that thieving little shit," he said. "Godsdamned plague on this town those brats are."

"He's probably right about that," I said, cheerfully. "But that don't mean he isn't cheating you." And I took another bite of the pie, the thin flavourless gravy spilling down my chin. I was starting to regret stealing the damn thing. It really was vile: claggy pastry packed out with gristle, the lumps of meat chewier than the snails Tertius collected and starved in a bucket on the roof of the shack.

The butcher opened his mouth to retort then did a double take. "Where'd you get that pie?"

"Dunno, but it's fucking horrible. Wish I hadn't bothered."

"You little-"

"He was pulling the scale down with his finger while you weren't looking," I told Calvus. "Have him reweigh it again, you'll see."

"I'm going to call the guard in a minute if you don't fuck off," the butcher said. Calvus peered down at the packaged meat with a thoughtful expression, then sent a speculative glance my way.

"Weigh it again," he said to the butcher. "If you would?"

"You what, friend? You're taking his word over mine? That's a fucking insult if ever I heard one."

Calvus handed the package to the butcher, smiling as if he had no doubt I was full of shit, but even so... "Humour me, please. Weigh it again. Let's show the boy just how wrong he is, eh?"

I took another bite of the pie, leaving teeth marks in the soggy suet crust. The butcher stared at me in pure hatred, but he wasn't the brightest of men and lacked the skills to bribe and bluff and flatter his way out of this one. Reluctantly, he upended the packet and tipped the meat back onto the bloodied scales. Calvus leaned closer, watching carefully as the weights were set on the scales, one by one. And the butcher hesitated, shifting his stance guiltily, before placing the final damning weight.

"Well, well," Calvus said, mildly. "It seems as if the boy might have been right after all. Well, well. Goodness me."

The butcher shot me a hateful glare. I was far too busy dabbing at the crumbs of suet pastry on my shirt front with a moistened finger to notice. "A mistake is all it was," he muttered.

"I'm sure," Calvus said.

The butcher reluctantly fished a couple of Septims out from the jingling pockets of his aprons and held them out. Calvus regarded his greasy fingers and grimaced. "Keep it," he said. "Consider it payment for the horrible pie."

I stuffed the rest of the pie into my mouth and hopped off the wall. "Wasn't fucking worth it," I said around the mouthful of pie. I'm not certain they understood me, but from the expression on the butcher's face I think he got the gist. A guard was moving through the market, face reflecting the dark sky like a storm on the horizon. It was time to make myself scarce.

But my escape was to be delayed. As I slipped away through the market, Calvus called after me. "Hold a moment, boy." I stopped, glancing warily back at him as he caught up, clinging onto his pack as he made his way over the slippery planks. "You're one of Tertius's boys, aren't you? It seems I owe you my thanks."

I shrugged, wishing he'd let me escape because the pie really had been horrible and I wanted to wash my mouth out to get rid of the lingering taste. "Weren't nothing. He cheats everyone."

"Nevertheless, I'm very grateful. It was a kind thing to do for a foolish old man." He fumbled around in his pack. "I'm afraid I don't have any money left, but I believe I do have... Ah, yes, here we are." And he pulled out a battered cloth-bound book. "I know it isn't much, but I just so happen to have a spare copy." I stared, taken aback, as he placed the book in my hands with an almost reverent care, then beamed at me.

I flicked through, saw there were no pictures and squinted up at him. "I mean... thanks and all, but... what am I supposed to do with this? Is it worth anything?"

"Well... no. I suppose you could get a Septim or two for it, although it's not in the best of condition. I thought you might enjoy it."

 _Ah_. "I can't read."

I wasn't prepared for the flash of shock in his eyes. He was the sort of man for whom reading was so intricately entwined with his life that he couldn't conceive of people who didn't know _how_. "Oh. Oh, I... I see. Um..." And as he cleared his throat nervously, I stared at the ground, clutching the book close. I'd never much cared about not being able to read before, but now my cheeks were starting to burn. He cleared his throat again. "Would you... would you like to learn?"

My gaze snapped up, wary again. "Who'd teach me? _You_?"

"If you like." But he was clearly already starting to regret the offer as uncertainty crept in. "Well... perhaps not. It should be worth a Septim or two. Or... or come back to me in a day or two, and I can give you some money instead." He held out his hand for the book, and instinctively I found myself stepping away, arms tightening around it. I wasn't used to the concept of people giving things to me freely; I was even less used to me giving them back.

"Don't want your money," I said, before he finally let me escape into the crowd. "I'll keep the book."

And keep it I did. I still have it now, its pages yellow and unevenly cut, but rebound in fine calfskin leather. It was one of the first books I read when I learned how, stumbling over the words: the adventures of the hapless Building Commission clerk Decumus Scotti in Valenwood, and later its sequel _The Argonian Account_ when I managed to get my hands on that as well. _A Dance in Fire_ is no great history, and living close to Valenwood for so long I've come to realise its accuracy leaves a great deal to be desired, but still I kept it and treasured it, because it had been a gift from a man whom I came to care a great deal about. A man who taught me almost as much as Elise, not in the art of keeping oneself alive, but the art of forgery.

And as for the butcher, I broke into his house that same night and stole everything of value I could find, including fifty-three Septims in a chest with a shitty lock. I took the lot.

Fucker deserved it.

~o~O~o~

The countess died towards the end of Heartfire that year. She'd been ill for a long time, a slow decline of many years, with Count Terentius withdrawing more and more from court life. Her funeral gave me my first glimpse of the count and his son, although I have met them many times since then under very different circumstances. These later meetings never much improved my opinion of the count, although now that I know something of what it is like to lose the woman you love I find my attitude to him has softened somewhat.

Everyone in Bravil emerged from their houses as the funeral march passed by. The count had never been popular, but the countess had been when she was younger, before her illness led to the count taking over many of her duties. Which mostly meant leaving them to his steward, Scipio.

After her death, there had been some swaying of public opinion in his favour, since it was clear he'd loved her very much, but it was hard to sustain sympathy for a man swathed in silk, and clutching a scented handkerchief to his noise to ward off the stench of the river.

But it was his son who drew my attention. The boy was very young, and struggling to look noble, swallowing repeatedly, looking as if he were about to burst into tears at any moment. He was just a boy, a heartbroken child who had lost his mother, forced to watch as she was interred in her tomb.

And when the funeral was over life in Bravil continued as normal. The count retreated back within the high walls of the castle, barely bothering to sit court and hear petitions, and we returned to our scrounging and thieving.

There was a mean edge about Bravil in those slow weeks as the year crawled to its wet and miserable end. Too many fights, too many rumours. A girl from another thieves' nest was found one morning with her throat slit, her body tumbled into the river. The whispers said she'd been raped but we'd never know for certain since the body went missing and she wasn't around to tell us what really happened. And there were disappearances too, other kids. The wishful thinkers amongst us said they'd run away, but it didn't feel right to me. Bravil was the sort of place you ran to, not from.

And I watched and puzzled, stole what I needed to in order to keep Tertius off my back, and tried to figure out how we could change our lot.

I knew the castle well enough by then. Many thieves never become anything more than opportunists, stealing only what they need to survive from day to day. A few coins teased from a pocket here, a house-breaking there. It's a risky life, and one that I was already beginning to tire of. There were few wealthy people in Bravil, and little of value to steal, so it was inevitable that my curious, coveting gaze should rise to the castle, wondering what might lie within.

There are always ways in and out of such places for boys who know how to keep to the shadows, how to keep themselves from ever being seen. Scaling the wall on an overcast night with no stars to light my passing, only a glimpse of Segunda's face from behind a passing cloud.

But knowing how to stay hidden is only one side of the thieves' coin; you also have to know when to make yourself _noticed_.

Spend too much time sneaking around a castle and eventually you will be caught. You can spend days watching from a distance, memorising the routines of the guards and the habits of the servants, only to get caught out by a maid's unexpected dalliance with a cook. In one fell swoop all your hard work will be wiped out, and it'll be to the dungeons with you.

Safer by far to be a familiar face.

In the castle I had access to clean water and a sliver of stolen soap. I'd scrub myself clean with water from the castle's well and a sliver of soap, watch in fascination as the dirt sloughed off my wet skin like the shedding skin of a snake. It felt like I was becoming someone else.

I'd never seen anything like the castle before. It seemed almost like its own realm of Oblivion, somewhere not quite part of Mundus: a library, where the books were stacked so high a ladder of polished mahogany was needed to reach those at the top; a vast dining hall laid out for dinner, with the smell of wafting food making my stomach clench with hunger; in the kitchens a hellfire of roaring heat and the cook bellowing at the miserable red-faced boy turning the spit, while droplets of fat sizzled in the flames.

And the bedrooms. Gods, the bedrooms. An enamelled bath, as yet only half-filled, resting on an elaborately woven rug, the water scented with fragrant oil. Coils of steam rose from the surface of the water, beckoning me. I longed to dip my hand in the water, even to strip off and sink beneath the surface, but thankfully reason prevailed and I slipped away before the maid hauled up the next pail of water.

But still I could not see any way to make my plan work. My dream of having Pellis and Scipio fired in one decisive stroke felt impossible. The count of Bravil had little interest in governing the town, and still less in looking to affairs as inconsequential as hiring maidservants or keeping an eye on whether the cook is taking rather too much advantage of the perquisites of their job. Within the walls of this castle the steward might as well have been the emperor himself. He seemed untouchable.

Until the day I almost died. Yes, _again_. Frankly it's a wonder I ever managed to make it to adulthood.

~o~O~o~

All castles are full of secrets, and this one had more than most.

A warren of hidden passageways ran through the walls like veins carrying the heart's blood through the body. They spiralled down far underneath the town, and stretched out to a sheltered cavern at the edge of Niben Bay, where mudcrabs sat basking in the sunlight so bright it burned my eyes after so long in darkness.

It should have been easy to get lost. The passages were intricate, almost as if they had been deliberately designed to confuse and disorientate people. Some passages were so black I could see no difference if I closed my eyes, but I'd spent the last few years memorising the rat-ways and secret escape routes of Bravil until I could traverse them blindfolded and this was no different. I laid down an internal map of the route in my head, even while I wondered if there was such a thing as magic that could bewitch corridors like this. Some kind of illusion magic perhaps, the stones themselves enchanted to entrap foolish boys in an inescapable labyrinth. If so, the enchantment must have worn off long ago, since I never lost my way.

I wasn't alone in the tunnels. Sometimes, near an entrance, or at a particular junction, I would find the dust disturbed, as if another had passed that way recently. And there were rats the size of house cats, vicious little bastards with sharp teeth and glittering red eyes. But rats hold little fear for boys who grew up in Bravil. It was worse by far when the rats were already dead, whether long-dead desiccated, or fresh and still decaying, fur thick with writhing maggots. Flesh sometimes half-eaten by whatever had killed them.

And there was something else too, a lingering stink of decay and rot that lingered in the stale musty air as if something had been rotting there and recently departed. It had a strange musky odour, rather like the incense they used in the Great Chapel. I told myself it was a trick of the tunnels and pushed away my discomfort. Lied to myself, in other words. I should have known better.

I was inching myself through a narrow bottleneck in the corridor when a voice rang out behind me.

" _He's drunk again_."

It had been a man's voice that spoke, a familiar one too. one I'd heard it from time to time around the castle although I couldn't place it. It was so sudden, so clear, it made me jump and glance guiltily over my shoulder. No one there, of course. Conversations carried strangely in the tunnels: the voices often so clear the speakers might have been standing in the passageway behind me. Several times this startled me half out of my wits, until I realised what was happening, and still I'd never quite got used to it.

Footsteps echoed, sounding so close behind me I had to resist the urge to look around. And then the voice spoke again. "He's _crying_. The godsdamned sot. Weeping like a baby."

"Crying? That doesn't sound much like the count." This second voice belonged to the steward, Rufus Scipio.

"I see a very different side of him. The drunken fool. Gods, I'm sick of him. I'm sick of this whole wretched town."

I wedged my hands against the stone, exhaled and squeezed. Gradually inched through, the crush so tight I couldn't breathe. If I got wedged in I was fucked. And finally, like a cork popping from a bottle, I was free, sucking in the stale, musty-smelling air gratefully. Ahead of me the voices continued, no longer quite so clear, but still audible. I moved down the corridor, found a crevice in the stone through which I could see the room beyond. It was the steward's private quarters and Scipio was sitting at his desk, bent over a book. Semi-circular grooves had been won into the stone flagstones at my feet, so there was door here. Gods help me if they decided to exit the room this way because I'd never be able to escape in time.

"The poor man is mad with grief and heartache," Scipio said, shaking his head.

"Not feeling sorry for him?" the first speaker said.

"A little, perhaps. He did love his wife. And he has a boy to raise..."

"A boy he barely so much as looks at."

"Aye." Scipio sighed. "The poor child has too much of his mother in him."

"And too much of his father's blood. He won't end well, the spoiled little shit."

I shifted my position, and saw the other speaker, finally recognised him as the castle mage. A Breton, gaunt and sharp-eyed and balding. Jean something or other. I'd seen him around the castle from time to time, but tried to stay out of his way. Scipio winced at the mage's tone, but forced a smile, shrugged like it hardly mattered. He pulled open a drawer in the desk and reached inside almost to his elbow. When he drew his arm back there was nothing in his hand. Instead, he took the book from the desk and placed it carefully inside. His movements seemed restless, almost guilty, and as he closed the drawer a sound – not made by me, I hasten to add – drew his attention. He gave a sharp hiss of "Who's there?" Listened closely to the silence that followed. I held my breath, pressed my forehead against the cold stone, certain if I moved, if they glanced at the wall, they'd see me watching.

"You're getting paranoid, Rufus," the mage said, smirking,

"I'm telling you I heard something."

"Rats most likely."

Scipio grimaced. "You're probably right. This damned castle. It feels like there's always someone listening."

Their voices faded into an indiscernible murmur as they moved out of the room and down the hall. I exhaled, then lifted my head, curious about what Scipio had been about with the desk.

It took me a few moments to find the mechanism that controlled the opening of the door into the steward's room. The stone slab slid aside with an audible scraping noise so loud it made me wince, but when no hurrying footsteps came to investigate, I squeezed through and moved to the desk.

The drawer was locked with a fairly tricky mechanism which snapped a couple of my lockpicks until I got the knack of it and pulled out the drawer, smooth and silent on its well-oiled casters. And even knowing where to look, it took me far too long to find the hidden compartment and the trick of how to open it: the twin points cleverly concealed at the back, which had to be pressed with a certain amount of force, first one then the other, for the drawer's false bottom to lift up.

And nestled in the small space within lay the small leather-bound book. The first sparks of hope had caught in my chest as I flicked through it. I might not have been able to read, but I had a hazy idea of what a ledger was and its purpose. More importantly there had to be a reason why this particular ledger had been hidden away.

This was the answer I had been searching for. This was how we were going to get the sons of bitches.

I took the ledger and closed the drawer, then slipped back through the secret entrance, and heaved the door back into place, wincing at the scraping sound of stone on stone. In the bottleneck I stuck fast again and took a few deep breaths, waiting for my thumping heart to ease before I squeezed my way through.

I smelled it then as I waited, my chest sore and aching, stinging where the stone had grazed my skin. A sickly stink, that made my mouth flood with saliva, my stomach lurch with nausea so strong I had to take shallow breaths, fighting the urge to vomit. And as I paused, grimacing at the stench, there was a scuffing, scraping sound in the passage ahead of me.

The light ahead darkened, as if something had passed in front of the spyholes in the stone. And again that scratching sound. Nails on stone.

Sharp nails.

An icy sensation rippled across my skin. It was coming closer. I thought of footprints in the dust, of teeth-marks in a dead rat's throat. Ahead of me the padding sound of bare feet on cold stone. And I could see it now. A dark shape, lurching along the corridor towards me. A stinking smell that rose off it in waves, so thick I could taste it on my tongue.

All reason fled.

I wrenched myself free, the stone scraping against my arms with a sharp flash of pain I barely felt through my terror. Behind me a snarl that wasn't human and I ran. I lost track of how many twists and turns I took with the rotting thing pursuing me, its breath rattling in decaying lungs.

And suddenly the ground beneath my feet vanished. My arms spiralled and I plunged forwards, screaming, knowing with certainty that this was how I was going to die.

An instant later I struck the ground. Gasping, terrified, I pushed myself up. Felt cold damp stone beneath my hands, and all around pitch black, without so much as a glimmer of light to pierce the darkness.

No sound but the trickling of water and a guttural growling somewhere nearby.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. As usual, all comments, especially constructive criticism, are highly appreciated. Thanks for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

" _Necromancers are the scourge of Tamriel. Whether operating independently or in concert with the sloads or King of Worms, Mannimarco, they are responsible for many horrors, animated zombies and skeletons and other forms of the undead._ "

– _The Black Arts on Trial_ , by Hannibal Traven, Archmagister of the Mages Guild

I whimpered at the soft thud of something jumping down after me. Tears of fright prickled at my eyes, my once clever fingers rendered numb and stupid as I fumbled my dagger from my belt. As I backed away, my bare feet splashed into freezing water, and I swallowed back a startled cry an instant too late, heard a guttural snarl somewhere behind me. Flooded with terror, I clamped a hand over my mouth, squeezed my eyes tight.

Stones skittered out from under my feet as I threw myself forwards out of the water. Too much noise. Oh fuck, I was making too much noise and it was coming for me. The same rocks that had given my position away crunched beneath its feet.

 _Use them._

I tightened my fist around the dagger and hunkered down for balance, kept my breathing shallow because the stink of the dead thing was making my stomach roil.

 _There._

Silently, I fixed on where the thing had to be. Slowly, methodical, even with the tears rolling down my cheeks and my breathing so slow it was almost painful, I shifted closer, picking my steps carefully. Clutching the dagger so tight it felt part of my arm, like it had melded with my bones, become part of me.

The thing growled angrily; it knew I was there, somewhere close, and it swung around, searching for me in the pitch darkness. Once it almost had me; an arm swept past my face with a rush of foul-smelling air that made my mouth flood with saliva. I bit down on a cry of terror and froze, certain that the thing must have sensed me. It couldn't have come so close to touching me and yet not realised I was there. But the grabbing hands and snapping teeth I expected never came. It swung around, snarling in confusion at the darkness and I exhaled a slow breath, fighting the urge to faint.

Somehow, miraculously, I was still alive.

And then I started to move again, circling around behind it. My foot came down on something smooth and round that shifted beneath my weight. I went still, balanced for a moment on one leg, then very carefully shifted my foot to the side and set it down on the cold stone. I was so close behind the creature that I could hear its breathing, hear the air rattling in its lungs. The wrongness of a dead thing walking repelled me, made my skin itch.

I drew my arm back, and thrust, struck the zombie at the juncture between its neck and its chest. The blade of the dagger sank into its flesh, caught on a bone. My numb fingers brushed against its spongy skin, against a waxy flap of skin. An instant of terrified nausea, and then it screeched in fury and wrenched away, tearing the dagger from my grasp. Saliva sprayed my face as teeth snapped inches away from me. I screamed, a howl of terror, and flung myself backwards. My foot caught on the round smooth thing that had almost given me away before. Apparently it had just been biding its time until it got its second chance at breaking my fucking neck, since it twisted beneath me and I lost my footing. Arms flailing, I slammed into the ground, hard.

 _Fuck fuck fuck!_

I had only seconds before the thing was on me. It was already coming at me, audibly slavering. My hand closed on the bastarding bloody stone that had seized its chance to trip me up and I snatched at it, startled at how light it was for its size.

 _Because it's not a stone, idiot._

And despite that thought I was so dazed it still took me a moment to figure out what it actually was in my hand. Even feeling the rough uneven ridges beneath my thumb, even with my first and middle finger hooked into two convenient holes...

 _Oh gods. Oh fucking gods. It's a skull. It's a fucking skull._

I made a sound, a sort of strangled yelp, and flung the skull at the zombie. It bounced off harmlessly, clattered away. And in the instant before the thing was on me, I had a flash of utterly useless insight – I should have flung the skull away from me, tried to trick it into thinking I was elsewhere.

Just enough time to think, _You idiot!_ and then it was on me, and there was nothing but claws raking at my chest and teeth snapping inches from my face. The stench of its rotting breath was so intense I could taste tainted meat on my tongue. I set my hands against its waxy flesh, screaming in terror and panic and rage, trying to hold it back. Felt rot beneath my hands, its skin bursting like an overripe tomato.

For a dead thing it was strong. I jammed my forearm under its throat, holding it back. Felt for the hilt of the dagger, still jutting from its neck. The blade snagged on bone, so instead of tugging it free I worked it like I was trying to ream a lemon. Wrenched the blade around, and drove it upwards into the zombie's jaw.

Thick viscous liquid ran down the blade of the knife, over my fingers. The zombie jerked, jittered on top of me like a landed fish. Its teeth rattled, stinking breath enveloping me, and its weight crushing me.

The memory of another place and another time flashed through my mind, and for a second I wasn't lying in a pitch black cavern but in a dappled glade, soaked to the skin with a man's teeth at my neck and I still couldn't breath. I was still going to die.

The dead thing went still, and I almost didn't realise, my body so wrenched with hitching sobs I couldn't tell.

Only when my sobs had subsided did I recover enough sense to lever it off me. And still it was all I could do to curl up into a tight shuddering ball, and cry like a coward, pressing my face into the crook of my elbow. And finally, when my tears had dried and my shudders had reduced to only the slightest tremble, I uncurled and felt in the darkness for my dagger. I retched at the touch of waxy skin, drew my hand back and spat in revulsion, then forced myself to grasp the hilt. My stomach lurched at the scraping sound of the blade catching on bone, the sickening wet sucking sound as I drew it free.

I half-expected it to lurch back to life, but it just lay there. Not nearly so terrifying now it was dead.

A dead thing. A reanimated thing. And I had killed it.

The scratches on my chest stung so badly my eyes watered. I wiped the dagger on its shirt – rough homespun linen from the feel – then pushed myself back to my feet. In the fight, I had completely lost my sense of direction. My feet knocked against more bones, and then against something which wasn't bones, but what might have been the soft fur-covered body of a dead dog. I skirted around it, and stumbled blindly into the darkness until I reached the edge of the cavern.

The rock wall was smooth and slippery, devoid of handholds. Keeping my hand against the damp stone, I followed it around, fighting the urge to panic. Trying not to think about how deep underground I was. Of how long I might be here before anyone started to wonder where I was. And how much longer it would be before they actually came looking.

 _I'll die alone down here,_ I thought, and then the possibility occurred to me that I might not be alone at all.

My steps faltered.

"Stop it," I whispered, pressing my forehead against the damp rock. Letting terror engulf me now wouldn't help. I'd already wasted too much time in weeping. "Stop it, you stupid fucking fool." One last thwack of my forehead against the rock, hard enough to hurt, and I carried on, no longer letting my imagination linger on half-imagined horrors.

Halfway around, I stumbled across the stream again, gushing over my feet and into a crevice in the rock face. I squatted down and peered beneath the overhanging rock, saw nothing but ink-black darkness, heard nothing but the trickling of the stream. I was itching to escape the cavern, but forced myself to complete a full circuit in case there was a better alternative than squeezing through a crevice that might lead nowhere.

There wasn't, and when I came to the stream again I set my hand against the overhanging rock, and whispered a prayer to any of the gods who might not be completely indifferent to my plight.

Fat fucking chance.

~o~O~o~

I lost all track of time in the darkness, so I have no idea how long that journey upstream took. Once something spidery skittered over my hand when I set it against the rock. I shrieked and jerked my hand away, heard the sound of something slapping against the rock. And I waited and listened to the skritching sounds that seemed to grow all around me, imagining the tunnel swarming with monstrous bugs.

And then I continued, working my way along the underground stream with no idea whether I'd come to a dead end and have to backtrack, and what in Oblivion I'd do if if that turned out to be necessary.

It wasn't an easy journey. Once the ceiling dipped down so low I had to press my face underwater while I wriggled underneath and there was a moment of raw terror where my shirt caught on the rock and I found I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. A panicked wrench of my body, surging bubbles and the sound of tearing cloth, and I clawed myself through. My head twisted to the side, breaking the surface of the water so I could breathe again, could gasp thankfully at the air. The rock scraped down my spine with a sharp flare of pain I barely noticed until after I was through. When I saw light up ahead, filtering down from above, I scrambled up so fast the top of my skull crunched against the ceiling.

Maybe the gods had been listening but they just didn't like me much.

Either way the pain between my shoulderblades was replaced with a moment of black blinding pain in the top of my head, and still I fought through it, forced myself back to my feet. I was terrified that the light would turn out not to be daylight, but some kind of luminous cave creature, set there to torment me and make my fucking day complete.

It was Bravil's well. The shaft lay alongside the tunnel, fed by the stream through an opening in the rock. I hauled myself through, expecting to find the water in the well-shaft only slightly deeper than the stream. Instead I plunged under the surface, and kicked upwards, coughing and spluttering. And still, treading water and looking up at the sky far above, I wanted to weep with joy, to prostrate myself at the feet of the gods for deigning to save me.

It almost drowned out the bitter little voice, my cynical inner cunt, who was sourly pointing out that I was still underground, shivering and exhausted, with a long climb ahead of me. A little early to be swearing fealty to gods who'd so far done bugger all for me throughout my short miserable little life, no?

 _Sod you,_ I thought, grinning, and started to climb.

Unfortunately, my inner cunt had a point. What few footholds there were in the side of the well shaft were slippery, offering only treacherous footing. By the time I was halfway up the shaft, my body was screaming in protest, my muscles shaking like a seasoned drinker starved of alcohol.

Only a few feet higher – perhaps not even that – and I had to stop to rest, wedging myself against the rock. I was crying without even realising it, while my heart beat so fast I thought it might give out completely.

"Come on," I muttered, swiping my wet hair back from my forehead and glancing up at the sky. "You've climbed worse'n this. This is a piece of fucking piss."

So close. I was so fucking close. Just a few more yards, and I'd be free, lying on my back in the fresh air... Well, whatever passed for fresh air in Bravil. Point is, I'd drink it in like the sweetest wine imaginable. It would be bliss.

Ignoring the whine of protest from my much-abused muscles – my body complaining like a mulish child: "But I'm too ti-red." – I started to shift to begin climbing again, but a noise from above made me pause.

And because I was exhausted and far from thinking straight, I did the stupidest thing possible: _I looked up._

The plunging bucket thwacked me full on the forehead. Not painful, but hard enough to knock me loose and send me plummeting back down the well and into the freezing water. And just so we're clear, I'm not proud of what happened next: a moment of incoherent impotent fury which involved much thrashing around and ill-advised thumping of my fists against the sides of the well.

And then I burst into tears.

A silhouette appeared in the opening far above. "Is someone down there?" a sour uncertain peevish voice called down.

 _Oh, thank the fucking gods._ "Yes!" I yelled up. "I'm trapped down here!" _Although I wouldn't have been if some stupid fucker hadn't thrown a bucket at my head._

"What are you doing in the well?"

I gritted my teeth. "I'm taking a shit. What do you think I'm doing? I'm trapped! Please–"

A scandalised gasp. "People have to drink that water, young man!"

 _Oh, for the love of–_ I pressed my forehead against the stone, fought to modulate my voice. "I beg your pardon, madam. I promise you I'm not really taking a shit." (Although partway through my climb I may or may not have stopped to have a piss in the water below. Probably best not to volunteer that information though.) "I got lost in the caverns beneath Bravil. Please help me."

And then I was crying again, because I didn't think I could manage the climb again, and my legs were tired of treading water, and my shoulders were aching from the strain of clinging to the side of the well. If this idiot bucket-flinging woman didn't hurry up I was going to die down here. Drown or get ripped to shreds by whatever lumbering zombies still lurked in the darkness. " _Please_."

"All right, all right."

An agonising wait followed, so long I was on the verge of giving up and tracking my way back along the passage. After a while I tried to climb the rope holding the bucket, but it wasn't designed to take the weight of a person, and when I was only a yard or so up the wooden beam snapped, earning me yet another dunking and the piece of wood twatting me on the head for good measure.

By the time a thicker length of twisted hemp snaked down the well and landed in the water beside me, I was shivering, almost too weak to cling on as they hauled me up inch by scraping inch, rope burns stinging my hands.

And finally, after what seemed like hours, I gripped the edge of the well and slithered over the side, collapsing on the ground in a pathetically weeping sodden little pile. A small crowd had gathered to watch my rescue; the people of Bravil were always quick to gather when there was a sniff of free entertainment in the air.

Half-blinded by the sunlight fracturing around the watching silhouettes, I squinted, focused on the nearest person to me, the sour-voiced woman I now thought of as my rescuer. She was a hard-faced homely sort, with a broken nose and a mouth like a cat's backside, but I thought her the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I gripped her wrist, babbling my thanks, almost in tears of gratitude.

And in her turn she knelt beside me in a way I thought of as mothering, drew her face closer to mine and hissed, "Where's the bucket?"

I blinked at her. "The what?"

She smacked me around the back of my head to a chorus of delighted 'oohs' from the gathered crowd. "The bucket. The bloody bucket. Where is it?"

Somehow it seemed like a trick question. One that I couldn't quite fathom out. "I don't... Is it in the well?"

"Aye, and how am I supposed to get my sodding water without a bucket, eh? Tell me that, you little arsewipe." She slapped me around the back of my head again.

"Ow! Stop hitting me!"

"I'll stop hitting you when you fetch me back a bucket of water, you grubby little shite."

There was a ruckus from the gathered crowd, exclamations of protest as someone elbowed their way through, and I could have wept with relief as Armande emerged, his brow knotted. "It is you," he said. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Mind your language," my delightful harridan snapped. "There are ladies present."

"Are there?" He glanced around. "Where?"

Another chorus of delighted gasps from the crowd, except for one dissenter muttering, "Cheeky bloody Redguard," but when Armande swivelled around there was a general sheepish shuffling of feet and looking the other way.

"Well, I never!" my rescuer huffed in outrage.

"Oh, shove it, shrew." Armande helped me to my feet, while she continued to opine on the subject of the missing bucket to anyone who'd listen, but the best of the show was clearly over and the crowd had already started to lose interest and drift away. "Godsblood, Jack, what in Oblivion happened to you? When you didn't come back last night we thought you'd been thrown into jail or worse."

"I almost was." I followed him blindly, not realising where we were going until I saw the statue of the Lucky Old Lady, and the moody Bosmer who habitually sat at her feet, smoking a pipe and scowling at anyone who got too close. At that moment, he was glaring at Elise and Brey who were sitting on the wall that surrounded the statue, crunching into walnuts with their teeth and spitting the shells in his general direction.

"Fuck's wrong with him?" Brey said, staring at me, disbelief and amusement in his voice.

"Shut up, Brey," Armande snapped. Brey opened his mouth to argue then closed it with an audible click of his teeth when Elise laid her hand on his arm.

"Give it a rub for luck," she told me, nodding to the statue.

I bunched my fist and shoved it behind my back like a child. "No fucking way. Can we go somewhere else? That statue gives me the creeps."

The Bosmer gave me a speculative thoughtful glance, then looked away, exhaling a stream of copper-tinted smoke.

Another time Armande might have mocked me, but he took one look at my face and kept quiet, drawing us away, further along one of the side streets. I was shaking uncontrollably, fighting to keep my hands still.

Gods only know where they'd scrounged it up from, but an ale was pressed into my hand, and I took a long swallow, pressed the back of my hand against my mouth.

"There was something down there," I finally managed, my voice so unnaturally high that they might have been forgiven for thinking that my balls had decided to make a break for freedom. "It nearly killed me."

"You mean like a rat?" Armande asked dubiously.

"I mean like a person. A dead one. I threw a skull at it. A human skull, I reckon. And it was dark and there wasn't any light and I couldn't see a fucking thing–" I broke off, balanced on the knife's edge of hysteria.

"Can I slap him?" Brey asked. He rolled his eyes when they both glared at him. "All right, all right."

I took a breath, stared down at the neck of the bottle. "Actually that might not be a bad idea," I said. He met my gaze and we shared a brief grin, mine considerably more strained than his. I took another swig of the ale.

"Fucksake, no one's slapping anyone," Armande snapped. "Jack, what the hell are you on about?"

"It was a zombie." I curled my hand around the neck of the bottle. "And I lost the book."

" _What_ book?"

Elise elbowed past her brother, and knelt between my legs, her hands resting on my knees. Brey's smile curdled.

"Jack," she said, "look at me."

I looked at her. Past the grime and the smattering of spots on her chin to her large dark eyes. How could I ever have taken her for a boy? She was going to be lovely. Already was, really, now that she'd grown into her lanky frame and her awkward toothy features. She held my gaze, nodded. "You're safe now, all right?"

I swallowed. "All right."

"Now shut the fuck up, have another drink of ale and tell us what happened. From the beginning."

And so that was exactly what I did, found myself faltering when I got to the zombie and the pitch darkness. I closed my eyes and found unsurprisingly that it didn't help, so I stared at the sky instead.

"What was the book about?" Armande asked.

"Gentlemen's reading material, I reckon," Brey said, trying for a filthy grin. "Why else would he hide it away?"

"I'm pretty sure it was a ledger," I said. "And it was important." I thumped my leg with my fist in helpless fury. "And I lost it."

Elise caught hold of my hand, squeezed it tight.

"You haven't lost something if you know where it is," Armande said.

"Not like knowing does us any good. It might as well be lost. We–" I stopped. He was grinning, Elise too. The two of them with matching wicked little grins, two halves of the same borderline insane coin. " _No_."

"It can't be that tough if you managed to kill it in total darkness," Brey said.

"And you'll have us with you," Elise said. Once again Brey's smirk slipped a little. "And it's dead anyway, remember?"

I rubbed my face. "I must be losing my mind. That almost makes sense."

Thing is, we were kids. Tell a group of kids that there's a secret network of caverns and secret passages hidden underneath their town that might be filled with zombies and what exactly do you expect to happen? With half a bottle of strong ale inside me even I was starting to forget my terror and feel adventure beckoning. And he was sort of right: I had killed it.

"You lot." Brey shook his head in disbelief. "You're all fucking crazy. Have fun down there. Try not to get yourself killed, eh?"

Armande turned and looked at him.

Brey met his gaze and gave a bark of scornful laughter. "No. No fucking way."

"We need light down there," Elise said. "You're the only one of us can do magic worth a damn."

"Ever heard of a torch?" he shot back. She frowned.

"What happened to 'I bet that zombie's not so tough'?" Armande asked. "Don't tell me you're scared."

"Don't tell me you actually think that trick'll work on me, I'm not eight any more, Armande."

"Torches go out, and look at Jack. He's soaked to the skin," Elise said. "If the torch gets wet and we can't get it lit again... Or if it turns out there's more of them..."

He stared at her, then swung away, pushing his hands into his hair. "Fuck," he said, voice thick with fury. "Fuck the fucking lot of you."

"Let him be," I said. "He's right. Going down there again is stupid. If he doesn't want to do it–"

"And that trick won't work either," Brey said, glaring at me. He'd already lost the argument, and we all knew it.

~o~O~o~

It was only at the well that I started to wonder what in Oblivion I thought I was doing. The rope was still slung over the side and I leaned on the crumbling stone surround, peering over the edge. Far below the water glimmered up at me like a winking eye. It wasn't just me having second thoughts: Armande and Brey were both holding back, trying to let the other go first without making it look like they were trying to let the other go first.

It was Elise who rolled her eyes at the lot of us and marched forwards to slip her leg over the side of the well.

"Please, El," Brey said, giving up on trying to inconspicuously edge behind Armande without any of us noticing. His voice had changed, lost its edge. He sounded much younger, a boy again. "Don't go down there. We can do this another day. The book'll still be there tomorrow and it'll be dark soon."

She shot him a look of contempt. "Don't be such a gutless worm," she said, and then she was gone, slithering out of sight down the rope.

I shared a look with Armande. Brey elbowed past us and leaned on the side of the well, staring down after her. He glared at me as if I was personally responsible (and to be fair to him I probably was), then followed her down.

 _Damn_.

If Brey had done it then Armande and I didn't have much choice. It was one thing to chicken out after Elise, who had a streak of madness that would probably have drawn her to the worship of Sheogorath when she was older, but if we chickened out after Brey had gone he'd never let us live it down.

Brey's hollow, echoing voice drifted up from below. "Gods, this water's freezing. Come on then, you cockless fuckers."

Armande looked at me, asked, "Want me to go next?"

I shook my head, resting my hand on the stonework, counted to three, reminding myself I wouldn't be alone this time. _Great,_ I thought, _so I'll die in good company. Fucking wonderful._ And then: _Fuck you, Elise, you crazy bitch._

And down I went into the bowels of Bravil. I looked up as I descended into darkness, up at the halo of light, and Armande's silhouette. My palms were sore and scraped, stinging at the touch of the rope. Halfway down my descent slowed, then came to a complete stop. Below there was nothing but silence, and it closed around me, cold empty dread pinning me to the rope. I couldn't move. Couldn't climb back up either; I was stuck, frozen in place.

Below something splashed through the water and my fingers tightened into claws of dread on the rope, my muscles shaking. Something had happened to them, I thought; something had happened to Brey and Elise.

Then a voice rang out, a familiar snide tone, and I could have kissed him in relief. "What the fuck are you doing? Why've you stopped?"

"B...Brey? That you?"

"Who the fuck else would it be?"

My held breath gusted out. A shaky laugh. "Yeah, I know. I just... I just went a bit weird for a minute there." And still I couldn't make myself move.

"Are you all right?"

 _No_.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just let me..."

"Hurry the fuck up, will you?" he said. "The sooner we get this bullshit over the sooner we can get back home." Elise murmured something I didn't hear and Brey snapped, "I'm fucking here, aren't I?" back at her.

I tried to force myself to continue, but instead my arms tightened around the rope, freezing up. There was no way I was going to be able to make myself move.

So instead I let go of the rope.

Brey yelled in alarm, throwing himself back as I plunged into the water. It embraced me, soaking through my already sodden clothes, a lover welcoming me home. I surfaced, gasping, pushed my hair out of my eyes. Brey's face loomed close, and he gripped my arm and hauled me out. I found a perch on the stone beside him, shivering. "Thanks."

Elise was already edging along the underground stream, squinting into the darkness. Pulling at the bit to explore.

Brey glanced after her, frowning, then lifted his gaze to the top of the well and raised his voice. "Armande? You coming?"

There was a long silence, then from above the muttered word, "Shit." He thought we couldn't hear.

Brey's grim expression broke into a grin, and we exchanged a look of amusement while our not-so-brave-leader hauled himself down the rope. Like me he dropped the rest of the way and plunged into the water, Brey and I flinching back to avoid the splash.

"Which way?" Armande asked when he'd hauled himself out of the well.

It was strange being down there again with light. The spell Brey knew was a weak one, the sort of basic cantrip that anyone with even the basic modicum of magical ability usually learned by the time they were ten years old. The light it cast was weak and watery, barely as bright as a candle-flame, sparkling on the water churning over the sharp slippery rocks and our bare feet. It didn't do much to light our way, but it sent shadows crawling across the walls, making them look alive.

Which way, Armande had asked and for one awful moment I didn't know. I couldn't remember whether it was left or right.

Armande rested his hand on my arm. "Jack?"

"Um..." I shook myself. My memory still didn't seem to be working properly, but I put myself back there. Remembered how the water had flowed over my numbed feet and ankles, how it had seemed to be pushing me onwards. "Upstream," I said, relieved. "It's upstream."

We followed Brey and his weak little light, which guttered out every so often just like a real candle. Each time my gut would clench as the darkness surged in, the after-image of the light dancing on the inside of my eyelids, while I told myself that this time his magicka would fail him and we'd be trapped in darkness. Each time I held my breath, exhaled with relief when the weak light burst into being again.

And even then it wasn't so bad a journey now that I could see. For me anyway, since I was skinny enough to slip through even the tightest spots. It was harder for Armande, bringing up the rear; he was the biggest of all of us and his clothes kept hooking on the rocks. I lost count of how many times I heard him spluttering in frustration behind me and had to call ahead to the others, ask them to wait while I helped unhook Armande from whatever sharp outcrop of rock he'd snagged on this time.

Now that I could see it was actually sort of beautiful. There were mushrooms growing on the walls which seemed to drink in the light and cast it outwards, glimmering with a soft blueish light. Swathes of thick green moss hung around us like draperies at a vast underground theatre. And the chittering things I'd been so terrified of in the darkness turned out to be white soft-shelled crabs with shrivelled harmless claws and spidery legs, each the size of a man's palm.

We stopped to watch them sidling out of the light for a while until Armande caught up. "Wonder if they're edible," he said.

Brey made a face. "You really want to risk it?"

Armande's face twisted, but he glanced back thoughtfully as we moved on. Food was food.

At the crevice which opened out onto the cavern, Brey knelt down, squinting underneath the overhanging rock. "Fuck, that stinks."

Elise squatted beside him, trying to shoulder his bulk out of the way. "Can you see anything?"

"Bugger all." He looked up at me. "You sure there's no more of them in there?"

I worked my tongue around my mouth, but couldn't work up enough saliva to speak, so instead I shook my head. There could be hundreds of the fucking things for all I knew.

He grimaced. "Right. Good. Fucking brilliant."

"I'll go first." I found my voice, even if it was hoarse and weak enough to shame me. Even if it was almost drowned out by the internal voice screeching, _Like fuck you will._ "I'm the one who brought you here. I'll go first."

And still I knelt in the water, waiting too long for one of them to intervene. For Armande or Brey – or let's face it, Elise, since she was the only one who would – to offer to go in my stead. None of them did, the bastards.

 _If you're going to go, go._

"Damn," I whispered, and before I could stop myself I squeezed underneath, rolling into the darkness, the smell of rot enveloping me. I rose to my feet, staggering on the slippery rocks, the sound of splashing horribly loud. Unwanted images flashed through my thoughts: bloated faces swivelling towards me in the silent darkness, more of those maggot-white crabs swarming around them. And I clenched my fists, forced myself to stand still, listening out for any hint of movement, for the soft scuff of bare feet on stone.

 _Nothing. There's nothing here._

"I think..." My voice sounded horribly loud. "I think we're okay."

Brey squeezed through next, swore under his breath as the starlight spell guttered out. A soft involuntary moan rose in my chest. My heart jittered, and then there was the rush of magic gathering in the air, and the starlight spell winked back into life, made the darkness and my panic scatter. Brey was grinning at me. "Shit yourself, did you?" he said, although he looked shaky himself.

"Let's just say I've never been so relieved to see your ugly face."

"How relieved would you be to see my fist?"

We scanned what we could see of the cavern while Elise and Armande followed us through. In that small circle of watery light we huddled together, no longer feeling quite so brave. The gathered shadows at the edge of the light made the chamber seem vast, the ceiling far above us lost in darkness. In reality it was probably no more than ten yards at its widest point, but it seemed cavernous. And it was littered with bones.

Armande nudged at something with his foot, then stooped to pick up it up, and turn it in his hands. "I think—"

Two eye sockets gaped up at him. A tangled clump of greying hair spilled over his fingers. He stared down at it for a frozen moment, then flung it away and straightened up rapidly, wiping his hands on his trousers.

"See?" I said. "I told you there'd be skulls."

It didn't take us long to find the zombie. Sprawled in the centre of the cavern, it almost looked like it was sleeping, As if it might wake up any moment. And even so at the sight of it my gnawing fear lost some of its edge. In my mind I'd been building it up, picturing it as a terrifying lurching monster of a thing. Instead it was much slighter than I'd expected, filthy rags clinging to a shrunken frame and arms like withered birch twigs. Its face was thankfully turned away.

"That's it?" Armande said. "It's the size of a child."

"That's because it is a child." My voice was numb. "It's just a kid."

"It _was_ a kid," Brey said. "Fuck only knows what it is now. _Gods_." He looked like he wanted to throw up, a yellowish cast to his skin thanks to the conjured light. Saliva flooded my mouth, accompanied by the roiling sensation of nausea.

It really did look like it was sleeping, I thought. A hand was tucked beneath its chin, legs curled up in the foetal position. The soles of its bare feet were black with dirt.

All my fear had gone, leaving me with only a sick sort of pity. I wished I'd never come back here. Wished I'd never seen this.

Elise took a step closer, jerked away when Brey tried to hold her back. "I know him." She glanced at Brey. "Remember? From one of the other nests. Falco or Feltus or some other fuck-stupid name."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Little snot of a kid. Always yapping about how his mother would come and find him. Like we didn't all know how full of shit he was. But, El, we can't be sure..."

"I can. It's him."

"Elise–"

" _It's him_." She shoved herself to her feet, pushed her fingers into the mess of her hair, her other hand clenched, daring Brey to disagree with her. He opened his mouth, then took another glance at the corpse. Looked away.

"How old was he?" I asked.

Elise shrugged. "Maybe eleven or twelve. Might've been older, I suppose, but I don't think he was."

 _Just a kid._ "You think... you think he died down here?"

And now they were staring at me. All three of them, their faces unreadable.

"It's just... down here. On his own..." He must have been terrified, the poor little shit. I'd been scared out of my wits, and I wasn't far off being an adult. Falco or Feltus or whatever the fuck his name was had been a child, and if he'd died here in pitch darkness, alone...

This wasn't even the slightest bit fun any more, not that it had been all that fun to begin with. There was a sound that could have been the wind howling through some far-off tunnel. The wind. Almost certainly.

All of us out of some unspoken agreement huddled closer to Brey. Trying not to think about the number of bones scattered through the cave, and how unlikely it was that a single small child zombie had been responsible for all of them.

Armande said quietly, "Where''d you drop that ledger, Jack?"

"Um..." I looked around, took a few cautious steps around a ribcage. Came up short. Turns out I'd been right about that fur-covered thing being the rotting corpse of dog, and that was knowledge I could have done without. I tore my gaze away. "I reckon I came through an opening in the rock up there. So... it must be round about here somewhere."

Finding the ledger proved tricky given that none of us wanted to stray too far from our only source of light, and we were all wet and cold now. Shadows loomed around us, and it seemed that no matter how I tried to turn my back on that pathetic little corpse, I could still see him in the corner of my eye. That poor dead boy no one had really liked, whose name we couldn't even remember, which had been Falco or Feltus or some other fuck-stupid name. He'd deserved better than this.

This was where my loathing of the undead and necromancers began, a cavern beneath Bravil where I'd almost died at the hands of a corpse much smaller and weaker than I was. Make of that what you will.

I'm not particularly fond of vampires for obvious reasons, but zombies I find repellent. It's the smell, the stink of them, how it seems to cling to your skin, your hair, burrow its way inside you and seep through your pores, until with every breath you can taste rotting flesh on your tongue and you know you'll never be able to scrub yourself clean. You'll never be able to get rid of that stench.

Given recent events, perhaps you think necromancy a dying art but while many might assume the Mages' Guild blacklisting gives necromancers a powerful incentive to turn away from their creepy-as-fuck black arts, it takes a certain sort of person to be driven to that sort of magic in the first place. They're not usually the type who like being told what to do, and there has always – _always_ – been a contingent of necromancers who work beyond the aegis of the guild. It's not illegal – technically – but corpses aren't always that easy to get hold of, so many turn to less-than-legal means to obtain them. In other words they were driven underground.

Often literally.

In my line of work, many thieves consider the sewers a useful way of moving around the cities and towns. Useful perhaps, but risky, and certainly less than pleasant.

Personally I think it idiotic.

Why in the name of all the gods would anyone choose to creep around in the reeking darkness, ankle deep in slurry, dodging rats and goblins and the shambling denizens of the dark, only to emerge with the stink clinging to them, marking them out as a thief as surely as wearing some sort of uniform guild-sanctioned armour? (A suggestion raised a number of times during my tenure as the guildmaster and which I quashed immediately and without mercy on account of how idiotic it was.)

The willingness of some thieves to spend time in the sewers baffles me. Any thief with a head for heights and a lick of sense would choose the rooftops instead: fresh air, often a fine view if it wasn't raining, and only a marginal chance of slipping and breaking your neck, depending on how nimble-footed and/or drunk you were. And the rooftops didn't leave you stinking of slurry either.

Or having to deal with zombies.

But I have digressed again.

Elise was braver than the rest of us, and willing to stray further from Brey, despite him doing his best efforts to keep her within the circle of light, so unsurprisingly she was the one who found the ledger. She knelt, flicking bones away from her with a casual switch of her hand."Here!"

"Keep it down," Armande snapped, nervously glancing around. She gave him a contemptuous look as she handed the book to me.

"That's it." I took it from her, rifled through the pages. It was a little damp, the ink bleeding and smudged in a few places, but otherwise unharmed.

"Let me see. If it's filth I'm keeping it." Brey grabbed it from me. I clenched my jaw as he settled down to flick through it. He was the only one of us who could read worth a damn, although that wasn't saying much, and it wasn't like we ever actually saw him doing any reading. "Huh."

"What is it?" Armande asked. "Is it filth?"

"Jack was right," he said, frowning. "It is a ledger."

I thumped Armande's arm, grinning. "I fucking told you. What's it say?"

"It..." Brey traced his finger down the page. Stopped. Lifted his head and stared at me. "Never thought I'd say this, Jack, but you might have been right."

"Funny," Armande said. "I never thought I'd hear you say that either. Never thought I'd hear anyone say that."

I elbowed him in the ribs, not taking my eyes off Brey. "What is it though?"

"Look." He shifted, opening the ledger up so we could all see, and pointed at a line. "That's Tertius's name there. And it's a record of money received from him. There's a couple of shopkeeper's names in here too that I can see, so my guess is that it's a record of all the bribes him and Pellis have taken over the years."

The Nine Divines bless the clerks of this world. Men like Scipio, with debits and credits as their life's blood, whose hearts pound a double-entry drumbeat around their bodies, they often made my job a damn sight easier.

"So we take it to the Count? Get Scipio arrested?" I said.

Brey made a face. "You really think that bastard'll care? It's fucked up, but you ask me he'll just shrug, have a bit of a think about how much easier Scipio makes his life, and conveniently forget all about it."

I chewed on my lip. Damn it, he was right. Then a thought, like a needle piercing fabric, began to gather together all the possibilities. "Not if he thought Scipio was stealing from him too." I spoke slowly, the thought gradually taking form.

Brey rolled his eyes up into his head. "What now?"

I tapped the ledger. "You can write, Brey. You think you could add in another line?"

"You mean forge it? Me?"

"Yeah,"

He shook his head. "Nah. You'd need to match the handwriting, the ink, everything. You can't just scribble in any old bollocks and have done. Forging's a skill. A skill which none of us have." He gave a smirk. "Not even me."

"Fucking Bretons," Elise said, grinning. "Always so godsdamned smug."

"You'd be smug too if you were as brilliant as I am."

"Brilliant's not the word I'd use," Armande said.

"No? Not even if I told you I might know someone who could forge it for us?"

"Fuck off. You're talking shite You don't know anyone." But Armande hesitated. "You think Tertius would be able to do it?"

"That fat Imperial? He's like the rest of his kind, a talentless fuckwit with his head stuffed so far up his arse he can taste what he just had for dinner." Brey shot a grin my way as I said this, and I made an obscene gesture at him. "Not him, but someone he knows. That old bookseller, Calvus Varo. He's done some work for Tertius from time to time. He's a forger, from what I hear. Or he used to be."

"He's an Imperial too," I pointed out, still stinging a little at the insult to my race. Brey shrugged.

"Why would he help us though?" Armande asked. "Not like we can pay him."

I rubbed my chin, thinking it through. "We might be able to, you know. After all this is done I reckon we could have more money than we've ever seen in our lives."

"Says you. But we might not need to pay him at all." Brey snapped the ledger closed and held it up. "'Cause guess who else's name is in here?"

~o~O~o~

I'd expected more of the way of home-comforts from Calvus's house. In my mind I associated learning with wealth, and wealth with comfort, and Calvus seemed very learned indeed, so I was thrown by how shabby his home was inside.

I'm not sure what I had expected: a library like the one in the castle perhaps, polished oak bookshelves lining the walls, the books within pristine as marching soldiers marching on their way to a battle. The books in Calvus's house looked more like soldiers on their way back from a battle, and not one which they'd won with any convincing victory. They were scattered everywhere, countless books, far too many to fit on the few bookshelves he had. Those shelves were reserved for the books that presumably he valued the most, and even so he had still crammed more books and sheaves of parchment into every available gap.

More books were stacked in piles everywhere, on the floor, in corners, some of the stacks taller than me, and leaning precariously against each other. And every surface that wasn't covered in books was covered in paper. Even the bed, a rickety thing that didn't look much more comfortable than the bedroll I slept on, was piled high with various sheets of parchment, and yet another pile of books, as well as an inkwell, a little curl of the blanket tucked around it to keep it from spilling. The books looked like they'd been there a while.

And in the middle of all this paper chaos was Calvus Varo, bony-fingered and mild-faced, dressed in an ancient moth-eaten robe that had faded to a dull gray.

"You want me to _what_?"

He was smiling, but his voice still had an edge of fear. It give me a strange feeling, set something twisting in my gut. It was the first time anyone had ever been afraid of me, although I'm afraid to say it wouldn't be the last. Now it took me off guard, made my the prepared speech crumple like autumn leaves. I couldn't think what else to say, so instead I wordlessly handed him the ledger.

He darted a cautious look at me, but he wasn't the sort who could resist having a nose in a book. He cradled it in his hands like it was a precious thing that could easily be broken. It was the way he held all his books, I learned later, perhaps as a kind of apology for the squalor he kept them in. Finally he sighed and crossed to the desk where a candle was burning in a lantern. "May I ask what this is–" He broke off, his finger catching on an entry, much as Brey's had. He didn't look up.

"It's the castle steward's ledger," I said, finally finding my voice. "One of 'em, anyway. He don't keep this one with the others."

"I'd ask how you got your hands on it but I rather think I wouldn't want to know the answer."

"You really don't," I agreed. I moved closer, trying to ignore how he stiffened, the wary look he shot me as I pointed over his shoulder at an entry Brey had marked out for me. "Funny thing though, that's your name there, look."

He tugged the ledger closer, like a gambler trying to hide a hand of cards from someone who might be peering over his shoulder. His shoulders were stiff, his head down, and although I couldn't see his expression clearly, I knew it was one of shame. The room seemed to shrink around us. Small and cramped, the smell of woodsmoke from the decrepit stove not quite drowning out the stink of the canal. Small and squalid and cluttered, crammed with books, and every surface coated in soot and dust and grease.

 _You can read_ , I thought with a twinge of resentment, staring at his shoulders. _That means you're supposed to be rich. Why do you live like this?_

"Why bring this to me?" he asked, softly.

"I'd heard you were good at this sort of thing. You know..." I gestured towards the ledger, wondering if Brey had been wrong after all. If he was I'd make sure to make him suffer for it. "Tertius said–"

"If he told you I'm still a forger, he was lying. That part of my life is over. I'm a scribe now. An occasional dealer in rare books. Nothing more."

"Seemed like a lot of Septims to me," I said, nodding towards the ledger. "And that was only one entry. How many more times is your name in there? One thing about Pellis, he's lazy. When he finds an easy mark he always comes back for more." And Calvus seemed to me like the very definition of an easy mark.

His eyes narrowed. "I thought you couldn't read."

"I know my numbers though."

He paused, lips tightening. His gaze shifted around the squalid little room, then back to the ledger. "If you think the count will care–"

(Poor Count Terentius. How little faith everyone has in him. He deserves it, of course, then and now, but even so... I wonder if he's aware of it, if he realises how little he is respected, and how much it must hurt that his reputation is worse even than _mine_.)

"One thing about the count," I said. "He really did love his wife." Calvus stared at me. I waited for him to protest, to demand to know what I was planning and how in Mundus I thought I would get away with it. It never came. "I can do it, I reckon. I can bring both of them down, Pellis and Scipio both and get someone decent in their place. Pellis's place, anyway. And if the count thinks Scipio is stealing from him he'll be more cautious about the next steward he takes on." Another pause, and still he stared at me, a strange look in his eyes. I clenched my fists. "I can do it. I know I can. But I need your help and I need to know now because we need to act before they get wind that something's up. So you in or not?"

He tapped his fingers on the ledger a couple of times, thinking the matter through. Finally he lifted his head to fix me with his weak eyes. Weak they may have been but the expression in them was grim.

"I'm in."

When you're a thief, sometimes life hands you a gift. I think of it as a glass of alcohol, because why not? Sometimes that glass is a filled with the sweetest nectar imaginable, a thousand times finer than even the best Cyrodilic brandy (if such a thing is possible), and sometimes it's filled with poison. And you have no way of knowing which it is until you've drunk it down.

Sometimes, very occasionally, it's both.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

' _The Master of Stealth looked at the little girl burglar. "Your skill is not in need of training. Your planning is adequate, but I can help you with that. What is without hope is your ambition. You are past stealing for your livelihood, now you steal for the pleasure of it, for the challenge. That's a personality trait which is incurable, and will lead you to an early grave._ "'

– _Purloined Shadows_ , by Waughin Jarth

"I've said it before," Brey said, his voice grim. "This is a bad idea. How do we even know it's going to work?"

"Of course it'll work," Elise said.

"Fuck knows why we're even listening to him," Brey continued as she hadn't spoken. "He's going to get us all killed."

"Enough." She pressed her hand against his chest, her head tilted up to gaze into his eyes. I looked away, uncomfortable. "I'm doing this, Brey. I want that bastard to get what he deserves." There was a moment of strained silence, and from the way Brey shifted I suspected he was thinking of arguing further. Elise rose up on tiptoes to kiss him, murmured something in his ear.

And I focused my gaze on the castle, wondering if I should have prayed after all. Most of that day I'd spent hovering around the Great Chapel, trying to decide if I should offer up a prayer to Mara or if I'd just be wasting my time. In the end, I hadn't bothered. It wasn't like the gods were known for smiling on thieves, and at the time I knew nothing whatsoever about the daedra, only that they were the province of heretics and perverts, and as far as I was concerned at that age I was neither.

"If we're going to do this," Armande said, his voice low, "then let's fucking do this. If you're too scared, Brey–"

"I'm not scared."

"Then stop acting like it. Jack's got the hard bit. Our part's a piece of piss." Armande sounded calm, much calmer than I felt. As if this – me breaking into the castle, robbing the most protected man in there, and framing two of the most dangerous for the theft – was an everyday occurrence. I wasn't sure I agreed with him but his confidence was contagious.

"Dealing with the guards is easy?"

"Nothing we ain't done before." Armande nodded at me. "We'll do our part. Once you give the signal–" a flash of Armande's teeth, "–there won't be a guard left in those barracks."

"No," Brey said gloomily. "They'll all be after us."

"Just have to make sure you move quick enough that they don't catch you then," Armande said.

"Oh, I'll make damn sure of it, believe me. Because if they put two and two together, and they're not all illiterate fuckwits by any means, they'll kill us." Brey gave a disgusted snort, jerked his head towards me. "Why the fuck do you all listen to him anyway?"

"Look, if we stand about arguing any longer, we'll never get it done," I snapped. "Are we all in or not?"

"I'm in," Armande said. "You know I am."

Elise nodded, and we all turned to look at Brey. Doubt and fear and anger and resentment warred on his face. Elise slipped her hand into his, and finally he gave a rough nod of his head and looked away, scowling.

~o~O~o~

It was all too easy. Guards are easy enough to evade if you know what you're doing. If you're quick and quiet, and have balls of steel. In the middle of the night guards are longing for their beds and the warm bodies of their wives or mistresses just as much as the next man.

There's no magic to it, just human nature.

Why investigate that strange noise or a flickering shadow when your feet are killing you and there's probably nothing there in any case? Besides catching a thief in the act is liable to get a man killed, and even if the culprit is cooperative it's a damned faff dragging him down to the dungeon to pick over his belongings and determine which of them are stolen property and which belong to him legally and which might be worth filching for yourself. And your shift is meant to end in forty minutes; arresting him guarantees it will overrun, making you late home, and _then_ you'll catch an earful from the wife for waking her up.

Even the finest master thief relies more on laziness and inertia than his own skills (and not to brag or anything, but I really ought to know).

There was only one hairy moment, with a guard who proved a little less lazy than normal. If you have ever been to that part of the castle in Bravil you may be aware there is a tapestry there, and behind that tapestry an alcove. It could only be opened from inside the secret passage (or else I hadn't discovered the mechanism yet), but I had no intention of ever using those passages again unless I was desperate. There was still space enough behind the tapestry where someone skinny and slight could conceal themselves. And if the guard had been observant, he might have noticed that the tapestry, usually stirred by a draft from the passageway, had gone suddenly suspiciously still. Luckily for me he was neither observant nor particularly bright.

"Huh. Nothing there after all," he muttered. There was definite relief in his voice.

When he was gone, I stepped out into the corridor, my feet padding silently on the rug that ran its length.

In the count's chambers I waited, listening for any sign of wakefulness within. There was only the soft even sound of breathing, the count fast asleep in his vast double bed. I'd been here before, but my mouth still went dry at the display of wealth in the room. The rich brocades of the bed-covers, the heavy curtains at the window; it was enough to make my palms itch.

The lock of the jewellery box on the shelf was promisingly hard to crack, and I wasn't disappointed. Tertius would have wet himself at the amber and gold necklace within, the design modelled after Altmer jewellery, the centrepiece a shining emerald cupped in the wings of a stylised eagle. And there was more: a ring that would have been a stunning piece in its own right, but a shiver of power that ran down my spine as I plucked it from its nest of navy velvet told me it was enchanted. With a sapphire the size of my thumbnail encased in a net of silver threads, surrounded by diamonds like winking eyes, it would be worth a fortune.

Naked greed and longing tore at me, and for a moment I was tempted to forget the entire plan. With something like this I'd be practically set for life, at least until the money ran out (and back then I hadn't yet grasped the essential truth, the one most thieves never seem to understand: the money _always_ runs out).

"Not why you're here, Jack," I murmured, and gave my torso a wriggle to make my healing bruises twinge. _That_ was why I was here.

I pocketed the lot, then turned towards the bed, eyeing the sleeping count. The really precious stuff he'd keep close.

He looked very different to the stern-faced noble I had seen at the funeral procession. Now he seemed only a heartbroken man, dishevelled and with his nightshirt in disarray. I've never liked to steal from the sleeping; it feels unsporting somehow, and it makes me uneasy how defenceless they are. How fragile and how easily broken.

I shivered, pushed my fears away, and took another look around the bedroom to remind myself of how little this man did for Bravil, how he spent money on trappings for the castle while the town rotted in the stinking air and the watch that was supposed to protect the town preyed on it instead.

My light clever fingers prised out first the gold chain around his neck and then the locket from beneath his nightshirt. He stirred, and I froze, fingers pinched tight on the chain, waiting until he went still again, and I could resume my work on the clasp.

I knew it was special even before I'd gently tugged it free.

The locket was a beautiful thing, inlaid with delicate enamel and tiny jewels like beading on a dress. It must have been priceless, a masterpiece of the jeweller's art. Even today, I have never seen anything quite like it. I held it clasped in the palm of my hand, and moved to the door, my heart racing with the excitement and thrill of a successful theft.

I miss it sometimes, that feeling. These days I tell myself I never wanted to be a thief, that my life in Bravil was never about anything more than survival. I was a filthy boy in ragged clothes, who couldn't read, who had no transferable skills. What else could I be but a thief?

It's a lie. Like all the best falsehoods there's some truth to it, but that doesn't make it any less of a lie.

There's something about stealing, particularly from those who have more wealth than they know what to do with. There's something about pitting yourself against places with guards and quiet shadowy corridors.

For some thieves it's only ever about the money. They hate the life and can't wait to get away, but I loved it. Every minute of it. I loved it, and as I slipped out into the night I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud. I was drunk on it, on how easy it was to outwit guards who were slow and stupid and not nearly so clever as I was.

Keeping to the shadows, I scaled the wall and sat cross-legged to examine my haul. It was far better than even I had anticipated. If I could have sold it all legitimately and without a greedy fence taking a cut, I could have afforded a house of my own, although admittedly it would have been a house in Bravil.

In this line of work you pick up a lot of knowledge about jewellery. I'm no craftsman (unless you count forgery as a craft), but I know enough now that thinking about that locket makes me feel a little faint – how much it must have been worth and yet I passed it on so blithely, without even a second thought.

Even then I knew it was a beautiful piece of work, all filigree and scrollwork. The catch to open the locket was carefully hidden, but I worked at it until I figured out how to get it open and see the miniature of the countess within. She didn't look much like the woman I remembered. This portrait had been painted when she was a young woman, a pre-wedding keepsake he kept close.

Painters are liars, and the best of them lie so subtly you cannot tell. They take a person and reflect the best of them, pick out the finer features and conceal the flaws through shadow and trickery. Whoever had painted this must have been a fucking genius. Either that, or the countess really had been lovely in her youth: a beautiful dark-haired woman with a grave expression, her hair woven with threads of gold. I could see why the count missed her so.

I stared down at her, snapped the locket shut with a strange ache in my throat.

The piece I finally chose to sacrifice on the altar of misdirection was fine enough but nothing special, a broach that could easily have been lost and forgotten. I wrapped up the other pieces and tucked them away where they would be safe. If I got caught, the last thing I wanted was to be found with everything on me and nothing to use as leverage.

Earlier that day I'd dropped by and left a firelighter and a lantern as part of my preparations, and I struck the flint and lit the lantern. By now, if all had gone as planned, Armande and the others were waiting in the town below for my signal. I gave it now, three flashes of the lantern, and then I extinguished the candle and waited.

And waited. Long enough to start wondering if they'd chickened out. Brey I could believe it of, but I'd had more faith in Elise and Armande.

The breeze stirred my hair, dropped a cool kiss on the back of my neck, and I gripped the firelighter tight, wondering if they'd missed the signal. Whether I should relight the lantern and signal them again.

Then from the town below I heard a sharp crack, like the snapping of a dried twig. I sat up, leaned against the battlements to peer out over the town. There was another crack, and then another, and then suddenly a crackle-pop of explosions, a chaos of noise ferocious and thrilling enough to make me wish I was down there with them rather than watching the firecrackers from afar.

A shrill scream rang out, and something flared upwards, so sudden and fierce it made me whip back. A flower of flaming light burst across the sky, accompanied by an explosion so loud it rocked the entire town to its very foundations. Louder than thunder. Louder than anything I'd ever heard before.

I flinched, and covered my mouth to stifle a startled laugh. Muttered, "Holy fucking shit," through my parted fingers. If that didn't bring the guards out then nothing would.

In the town all was chaos, and the guards were surging out of the barracks like panicked ants.

"What's going on?" It was Pellis's voice, slurred, more than a little drunk.

The guard he'd been speaking to skidded to a halt. He was young, breathless, his eyes bright with barely suppressed laughter. "Little fuckers causing trouble in town, sir. One of them shoved Keddis into the Larsius!"

"You're shitting me."

"And they're setting off firecrackers. They–" Another deafening explosion, a starburst of flowers scorched across the sky. They flinched and the younger guard let out a laugh. "Gods, that was a big one! Wonder where they got them. Back when I was a kid my da used to–"

"You think this is funny?" Pellis demanded. "They're making a fucking mockery of us."

"I..." The young guard shifted, cleared his throat. "No, sir. Absolutely not."

Pellis grunted. "Good. Neither will they once we're done with them."

I crouched on the edge of the wall, the broach squeezed tight in the palm of my hand as I watched Pellis leave the barracks, bellowing at his men to follow. No time to let myself worry about Armande and the others. They were fast enough, smart enough. They knew what they were doing, and like Armande had said, I was the one with the difficult bit.

Except that I wasn't.

I had been nervous, but I wasn't any more. An easy confidence had settled on me, because this was my night, and I knew every second of it was going to go my way. The Thief was shining in the sky, and it seemed like message and blessing both. My luck was running hot: nothing could go wrong that night.

And nothing did.

That came later.

~o~O~o~

It was Calvus who found the fence, although he'd been cagey about how an elderly bookseller and scribe who dabbled occasionally in the art of forgery might know such a man. An old friend, he'd told me shortly, and refused to say any more than that. It seemed to me that there was something more there, since Calvus's voice snagged on the word 'friend' like a knitted stocking catching on a toenail.

The acquaintance seemed even less likely when I met the fence, whose name was Minelcar. He was an Altmer, youngish, although you never really knew with elves, richly dressed and charming enough to put me on edge from the start.

His eyes gleamed as I set the bag on the table and began to take piece by piece from it, lining them up on the table. Each piece he picked up to examine and turn in his careful fingers. His expression didn't change once, but I watched his eyes, looking for the unmistakable gleam of avarice as he judged how much he could sell each piece on for and to what degree he could cheat me.

And then I placed the final item, the enchanted ring, on the table and he forgot all about keeping his expression impassive. He reached to it to pick it up like the others, but his hand froze above it and his eyes flared wide.

"Sweet Mara," he muttered softly. "That's..."

I grinned. "Yeah."

His gaze flicked towards mine. Then with delicate care, he plucked the ring from the table, and peered into the depths of the sapphire. "This... this is..." He shook his head in wondering disbelief, before remembering he was supposed to be showing only studied disinterest. "How much?"

"It's yours," I said. "All of it."

"I'm not even saying I'll take it yet. Stuff like this, it'll be hard to move. It's too recognisable. I might be able to work something out, take a couple of pieces, but–"

"No, you've not understood. I mean I don't want anything for it. Not money anyway. You can take the lot for nothing."

His slender fingers clenched reflexively around the ring. He wanted it badly; I could see it by the look in his eyes, by the way his golden knuckles were touched with white. "What trick is this?"

"You can rest easy, Min," Calvus called out softly. He was, as always, leaning over a book, but I could tell he'd been listening in. "It is a trick. It's just not on you."

The Altmer considered this, his green eyes flitting from the ring in his hand up to meet my gaze. He studied me for a long few moments, his eyes unreadable, and then suddenly, startlingly, he grinned. "What do you want me to do?"

~o~O~o~

When the mer had gone, Calvus seemed restless, moving around the room, unable to settle in any one place. I watched him, flicked idly through the ledger, trying to spot the changes he'd made. So far I couldn't be sure of any, aside from the last couple of entries. Not that I'd know, illiterate as I was.

It seemed to me that he'd matched Scipio's handwriting perfectly. The scratchy letters brought to mind a partially crushed spider, which had escaped near drowning in an inkwell, making a break for freedom across the page. Not the neatest of writers, Scipio.

Calvus huffed under his breath, peering at the soup cooking on the stove. He gave it a swirl with the ladle. "Does this seem on the turn to you?"

"Smells all right to me."

"Hmm." He squinted at me. "Considering you'll happily eat those dreadful pies from the market stall that isn't terribly reassuring." He lifted a spoonful of the soup and took a sip. "No, I'm sure it's on the turn. Damn it."

"Stop fussing and eat it. You'll be fine. Probably." I turned another page in the ledger, trying to pick out letters I recognised. It might as well have been the death throes of a spider. I was damned if I'd be able to read it even if I knew my letters. "You think they'll fall for it?"

Forgetting the soup, he shot me the look of a professional whose skills have been questioned by someone who knows nothing whatsoever about the business.

"I don't mean the ledger," I said. "I mean everything."

"Well, it's your plan. You aren't having second thoughts, are you?"

"Course I'm not." And still I hesitated. "Your friend, the mer..." He stiffened, gaze flicking away from me. "Can we trust him?"

"Absolutely not. He'll do his part though."

"Owe you a favour, does he?"

He stared at me. "Are you always so damned nosy?" Then he shook his head, held up his hand. "Actually, don't bother. I suspect I know the answer. Minelcar and I... well, we've known each other a long time."

"But you're not friends?"

He sighed. "Jack..."

"None of my business?"

"It's a private matter. One I'd prefer not to discuss." There was finality in his voice. Soft as thistledown he may have seemed on the surface, but a core of steel threaded through him. It would have made Brandt snort to hear it, but this old man, huddled in his paper cave, reminded me of him. They had the same quietly bitter air of confidence. And, given that I was a boy for whom the age of thirty seemed impossibly distant, they both seemed fucking ancient.

(Because naturally all old men are exactly alike. It's only old men who think otherwise.)

"Fine. So long as we can trust him... Or not trust him. Or... fuck, I don't know. So long as he does what he needs to do."

"He will."

I shifted, uncomfortably. Picked the ledger up. Set it back again. "I can't pay you. I know we didn't talk about money or nothing, but–"

"I don't want you to pay me, Jack."

A prickle of disquiet ran down the back of my neck.

He sighed and settled back in the chair. "Look, do you know how many Septims Captain Pellis and his like have taken from me over the three years I've been living in Bravil? You had the ledger. Did you actually sit down and count it up?"

I shrugged.

"Well, it's a lot. I keep ledgers of my own, my boy. Although..." He darted a glance around the piles of books. "I'm not entirely sure where they are at present. Still, it's a not inconsiderable amount of money, and to lose it to a... a _thug_ like Pellis..." His eyes hardened and the similarity to Brandt sharpened into focus. "I'm an old man. I'd about given up on fighting, and then you turn up. I thought you'd come to rob me at first..."

"Most people do," I said. "It's usually because I _have_."

"You realise you're risking your life here? If Pellis or Scipio catch you, it's unlikely you'll ever see the inside of a jail cell."

"I'm not scared of them."

"No? Because I am. And you probably should be too."

In reply, I lifted my shirt. His gaze darted to the starburst of purplish and yellow bruises on my ribs, visible beneath the dirt. His lips tightened in quiet outrage.

I shrugged. "Just a kicking. Not a particularly bad one either. And I probably deserved it too. Ain't much they could do to me that they haven't done already, and that they _will_ do given enough time if I let them. But I'm going to stop them." He stared at me, a strange look that made me shift awkwardly, dropping my shirt back down. "What?"

"Nothing, I'm just... I think I'd damned glad that you're not my enemy, that's all. Tell me, have you thought any more about learning to read?"

"Would you really teach me?"

"If you're willing to learn and put the time and effort in, then, yes, I think I would. If you want to. It's not like I have much else to do with my days, and in all honesty I'd be glad of the company."

I glanced at the array of books on his shelves, feeling shy now. I'd asked Brey if he'd teach me once, but he had an instinctive loathing of books and learning, and had stared at me as if I'd sprouted a third eye. Then he'd told me to fuck off.

"I want to," I said. "Very much."

Calvus smiled. And in his eyes I recognised the tug of loneliness. His was a solitary quiet life, one led by any number of men who'd set themselves apart, whether through shyness or ambition or simply because they didn't know quite how to reach out to people. They bury themselves in books until they realise the rest of the world has swept on and left them in its wake and by then it's too late to learn to live their lives another way.

Damn, I miss that man.

~o~O~o~

Whatever had happened between Calvus and Minelcar in the past – and to this day I'm not entirely certain, although I have my suspicions – Min judged it to perfection. A deliberately ballsed-up attempt at theft and they dragged him to jail, found one of the stolen items secreted in his pocket when they went through his belongings.

He didn't even bother to lie. He told Pellis and Baral that the person who'd sold him the locket had been a boy of about fifteen. He even gave them my description. But no one would have been stupid enough to believe that a child could have broken into the castle, avoiding dozens of guards, and snatched a prince's ransom in jewellery from the count's own bedchamber. Especially when the fence was so obviously lying.

I'm not sure what he did, but it must have worked. It rarely takes much to plant seeds of doubt in a man's mind, and Baral already knew exactly what sort of man Pellis was. All he needed was that little extra push.

They questioned Minelcar, and finally threw him into jail to sweat it out, but he was almost as good at picking locks as I was, and it wasn't long before he turned up at the shack, lounging on Tertius's bed with a hand tucked behind his head.

"It's done. They fell for it."

"Let's hope so."

He turned his head, following me. "I gave them your description. An Imperial boy of fifteen."

I gritted my teeth, thinking, _I'm seventeen,_ but there didn't seem much point in pointing that out. "That's all right."

"Don't you care? They might come looking for you."

"I doubt it." I grinned at him. "I bet they only had to look at you to know you were lying."

"Harsh." He considered it, then flashed a smile back at me. "But probably fair. Now... I believe there's still the matter of payment?"

"Sounds like you earned it." I threw him the bag. He made a soft startled sound in the back of his throat as if even now he suspected a trick, and began to pick through the contents. Every piece was there, accounted for, even the ring. I'd no intention of cheating him.

And still when he had each piece laid out on the bed, I edged closer. It was the ring I wanted. That enchanted little band of gold, which he picked up and slipped onto his finger.

"What does it do?" I asked. The words seemed to emerge of their own accord. Something about that delicate circlet of gold seemed compelling, like a soft whispering in my skull. Minelcar held up his hand, and the ring shone against his golden skin. We both stared, fascinated by the way the light from the rush lights caught and glittered on the sapphire.

"It's enchanted," he said, with a lingering smile. "It makes people like you more."

"Oh."

"When they were questioning me the guards seemed particularly concerned about the location of a locket," he said. "Only I don't see it here, and I don't remember it from before either. Did you steal that too?"

I nodded, still staring at the ring.

"May I see it?"

I glanced at him. He was smiling, his face open and friendly, and I felt tranquillity seep through me. Calvus had warned me not to trust him, but he only wanted to see the locket. And why not? What harm could it possibly do?

I wore it about my neck with my own, threaded through a small hole in my tunic so I would be alerted if a pickpocket clumsier than me tried to steal it. The Altmer stood as I tugged it out from beneath my shirt. "May I?" he murmured, and his voice was so reasonable and charming I could see no way of refusing.

I nodded and he stepped towards me, cupped the locket in the palm of his hand. "It's a beautiful piece," he said. Frowned when the trick of opening it defeated him,

"There's a knack to it," I said, eager to please. "Let me show you." And damn me but I was dizzy in my haste to please him, wanting only that this elegant, intelligent man should like me. I showed him how the puzzle worked: the gem you had to twist with one finger, while pressing back another catch, and the locket fell open.

"Ingenious. You're a very clever boy." He smiled, and I grinned back, happy to have pleased him. Thinking that his eyes were the greenest thing I'd ever seen, like emeralds, enamelled with rippling threads of obsidian. Gently, he tapped his finger against the locket. "You know, I would very much like this as well."

"The locket?" I frowned. And even in my midst of my clamouring desire to do everything in my power to make this man happy, a harsh scratchy voice was speaking up, telling me something was wrong, that I couldn't trust him. It was so grating it hurt my ears, like nails scrabbling for purchase on the inside of my skull. My first instinct was to silence it, outraged that even a tiny part of me could insult this handsome, charming, wonderful man, and gods forbid he even suspect even a fraction of me ever mistrusted him.

I reached up to the clasp at the nape of my neck, then hesitated.

He leaned closer. His skin had an underlying intoxicating aroma, like sweet wine. His hair brushed against my cheek, as he whispered, "I really do want it," in my ear, and his voice was like a song. A fist of longing clenched in my gut, and I don't even know what the hell I was longing for. I'd never thought myself interested in men, but at that moment I wanted only to please him in every way. And if that meant giving him the locket, then so be it. _Whatever_ he wanted from me, he could have.

"Of course, I'll pay you," he added, drawing back, so I could see his eyes, those jewels that put all the finery in the world to shame. "Shall we say... seventy Septims?"

It was worth five times that at least, even at a fence's prices. And I had not intended to sell it at all.

I swallowed. "That seems fair."

He smiled again, the corners of his eyes creasing, and he reached up to cup my cheek. The caress of his warm hand sent a shiver through me. The pads of his fingers, the touch of the ring...

 _It makes people like you more._

And the harsh scratchy voice in my head screamed louder.

I stared at him. Those eyes no longer seemed quite like jewels, only greener than most, and slyer too. "You are using magic on me."

His smile froze. "Er... Yes, um..."

I dropped my hands from the locket's clasp, one hand dropping to the dagger at my belt. "You were trying to trick me."

He glanced down at my belt, still smiling, but his eyes were cautious. "You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"It's damned tempting." I could still feel that tug towards him, although the spell was mostly broken. His eyes no longer reminded me of jewels, but they were still beautiful, and the smell of his skin lingered. I shivered violently, and took a step away from him, reminding myself that I had no interest in men. None whatsoever. Whatever attraction I might feel towards him was the lingering effects of the enchantment, nothing more.

And still my gaze darted to the strange not-quite-human contours of his face, his sharply pointed ears. They made me think briefly of the Altmer woman, of her shining golden skin in the moonlight, and I felt a stab of painfully acute desire that made my cock – in those days ready to stand to attention at a brisk gust of wind – harden. I drew in a sharp breath and turned away, cheeks burning.

I sat on the bed, pretending to busy myself returning the pieces of jewellery to the bag. "You should get out of town," I told him, roughly. Stiffened as he moved up behind me, and trailed his hand up my back, between my shoulder blades. Up to my neck, where it plucked at the gold chain.

"You know I meant what I said," he told me. "You really are a clever boy. You're wasted here in Bravil. How old are you? Fifteen, is it?"

"I'm seventeen," I snapped. Then: "I think. More or less."

"My apologies. I've always found it hard to judge the ages of humans. Old enough to join the guild." He chuckled, a finger sliding down my cheek. "And certainly old enough to–"

"What guild?"

"Hmm?"

" _What guild?_ "

He frowned at me as if I was stupid. "The Thieves' Guild, of course."

"I thought it didn't exist."

"Ah." He sank down behind me, his hand still resting on my back. The flames in my cheeks burned hotter, even as the harsh scratchy voice reminded me he was still wearing the fucking ring. My hand closed around an enamelled butterfly pin, tight enough that the points of the wings bit painfully into my palm. "It's a secretive organisation. And not nearly so powerful as it once was. The years have not been kind, but it exists, all right. A network of like-minded individuals, half-hidden in the shadows, offering each other… a helping hand, shall we say."

I closed my eyes. "Take off the ring."

He sighed, a weary, oh-very-well sigh and deliberately held up his hand and tugged the ring off. I waited, not entirely certain what I was waiting for. A feeling of warmth still coiled through my stomach.

 _Huh. Well, this is... unexpected._

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore his proximity, the scent of his skin that smelled like wine. And a treacherous thought darted through my mind: _I wonder if it tastes like wine?_

 _Godsdamnit, Jack. Concentrate._

"How do I join?" I asked.

"Hmm?" His breath warm on my ear. "I can show you if you like."

I squeezed my eyes, fighting the images that flashed through my mind. Limbs on a bed entwined. Lips and teeth and tongues, and skin on skin. "I was talking about the Thieves' Guild."

"So was I." He drew back slightly, eyes glittering with amusement. "What did you _think_ I was talking about?"

 _For fuck's sake_.

I threw myself up, grabbed the bag of jewellery and flung it at him. The heat on my cheeks showed no sign of subsiding. I pushed my hand through my hair several times, my fingers snagging painfully on the snarls and knots. He sighed again, another world-weary sigh.

"Very well," he said. "No more games. If you want to join, and frankly I think you should, you're wasted in this godsawful place, come to the Imperial City. The Waterfront District."

"Is that where you live?"

He snorted, an eyebrow quirked in contempt. "Gods _no_."

"Then..." I shook my head. "How do I even know you're telling the truth? How do I know I can trust you?"

"I thought we already established that you couldn't trust me. I'm a thief and a scoundrel. I thought I'd already made that clear."

"As crystal. Who am I supposed to look for in the Waterfront District then? Assuming I go."

He shrugged, flashed me an infuriating smile as he moved towards the door. "You're a smart boy. Figure it out."

"So it's, what, some sort of test? I go to the Waterfront District and look around until I find a member of the Thieves' Guild?"

"That's one method. Of course, most everyone in the Waterfront District is a thief in some way or another. Throw a stone and you're guaranteed to hit one. And then they'll pummel you until you're nothing but a stain on the ground, so it's not a technique I'd usually recommend." His smile eased a little, and for the first time I guessed it was close to being genuine. "I hope I will see you soon," he said, his eyes lingering on my face. "You really are wasted here, you know."

"I know," I said, and then as he turned to go, "Minelcar?"

"Mm?" He turned back towards me, eyebrows raised questioningly.

I held out my hand, the butterfly pin resting on my upturned palm. His gaze dropped to it, his eyebrows knitting together in a frown.

"But I was _watching_ you," he said. "How in Oblivion did you manage to–"

"When you were distracted. You really should pay closer attention. And never trust a thief."

He reached out to take it from me, then tilted his head. "I might never even have noticed it was missing. So why give it back?"

"I thought that was one of the rules of the Thieves' Guild. Never steal from another thief."

He studied me, his hand resting on the open door. It wouldn't take much persuasion, I thought, for him to swing it shut. To stay for a little while longer. Maybe no persuasion would be needed at all. The thought made my mouth dry up.

"You're not in the guild," he reminded me softly.

"Not yet."

"Hmm." He raised the pin, running his thumb over the filigree antennae of the butterfly. Then he shook his head, placed it delicately back into my hand. "Keep it. Give it to your lady love, if you have one."

And my cheeks were burning again. "I don't."

His hands gently closed mine around the pin, his eyes resting knowingly on me. "Not yet."

~o~O~o~

If I told you the easy part was over I would be lying. In fact the trickiest part remained, how to deliver the forged ledger into the hands of someone who could be trusted to deliver it to Baral and not to Pellis or the steward. Brey and Armande were all for leaving the ledger somewhere Baral would be guaranteed to find it first, but I had strong suspicions that simply wouldn't work. Baral wasn't crooked. In fact, he was in fact so _not_ crooked that if he got a hint this was a set up, all our plans might be torn to shreds. Leaving it for him to find wouldn't be good enough.

And then there was the matter of the locket.

Lying on my bedroll, with the delicate chain of the locket slipping through my fingers, I stared at the water stains on the sloping ceiling and tried not to let my thoughts wander in the general direction of Minelcar and his startlingly green eyes. I still dreamed mostly of the Altmer whore, but now in my dreams Minelcar would join us as well, the three of us tangled together in a bed with covers of rich damask and the sheets of fine cotton, with firelight burnishing our skin, making their limbs gleam like precious metal.

I always was easily distracted.

The burning rush lights filled the cramped squalid room with the stink of rancid fat. Elise lay fast asleep beside Brey, who sat watching me, his hand resting on her hair Armande was off trying to charm one of the new associates from the Mages' Guild, a young Redguard who'd found herself overwhelmed by the squalor around her and seemed to find his presence a reassuring reminder of Hammerfell.

"Maybe we should just keep it," Brey said.

"We're not doing that," I said.

"Sell it then. Why the hell not? Not like the count's ever done fuck all for us, is it? Him or his waste-of-space cunt of a son."

"It's not the boy's fault." I snapped the locket open, stared at the delicate portrait of the countess as if she might have some answers for me. "He's lost his mother."

"He's not the only one, Jack. Lot of orphans in Bravil, remember, and he isn't even an orphan. He's still got his father. His rich powerful father."

"Who barely even speaks to him."

"Yeah. Ain't he lucky. I wish my bastard of a father had ignored me." Beneath the mocking anger, Brey's voice was layered with sorrow and pain. I glanced at him, momentarily lost.

"He's just a kid," I said. "And this locket is all he has left of his mother."

"Some of us don't even get that."

"Yeah, I know." I lifted my arm, let the locket swing from my fingers, catching in the light that filtered through the gaps in the wooden slats.

"You look like him a bit," Brey said.

"No, I don't. I don't look nothing like him."

"Yeah, you do," Brey insisted. "Mind you, all you Imperials look the same. You're both ugly as a dog's arse." He grinned as I kicked out at him. So half-hearted it barely even connected. "Hit a nerve, did I?"

"Shove it up your arse. I look nothing like him."

I wanted the boy to have it, I decided. Without this, he had nothing but his mother's official portraits, which were all cold impersonal things, technically impeccable, but with no life to them. I'd seen them all in my explorations of the castle: eyes that fixed contemptuously on you as if you were no better than a beetle. They gave me the shudders. I didn't much like the little brat, but he deserved better than those hideous fucking portraits–

The locket twisted, caught the light, and the idea snapped into place.

"Shitting hell!" I sat up, startling Brey. "That's it!"

"What the–"

"Brey, you're a genius. I could kiss you."

"Please don't." He frowned, looking confused. "What'd I say?"

"I..." I hesitated. "I'm not sure. But I know how we can get the ledger to Baral."

"Leave it on his sodding bed, Jack, I'm telling you."

"And I've told you it won't work that way. We've got to make it look like it was accidentally discovered."

"Oh yeah? And how the hell are you going to do that?"

I just grinned.

~o~O~o~

It was a risk. In theory.

In the wake of the theft, Scipio had a higher guard presence than normal patrolling the private quarters, but here's another secret of a master thief: the more guards you have patrolling an area, the less vigilant they are. And in any case they weren't focusing their attention on the boy's bedroom. The eleven-year-old boy in question, Gellius Terentius was sitting upright in bed and staring at me with a gormless expression. He was a whey-faced spoiled little shit even then, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

From time to time a game would break out between the dog boys and the stable boys – I say 'game', but it was more akin to war than play: two vast armies of boys savage as berserking orcs booting an inflated pig's bladder across the roof of the kennels. The game's inexplicable rules mainly involved bodily slamming into whatever poor bastard found himself holding the ball and punching him in the bollocks for good measure.

Usually the guards or someone's mother would intervene before anyone got shoved off the roof and broke their neck (and the cringing shame on the face of the unlucky boy whose mother was dragging him away by his ear was very nearly enough to make me glad I was a parentless street-brat).

Savage and brutal as it was, and even though it left me with more bruises than some of the kickings I'd got at the hands of the guards, it was _fun_. I'd seen the count's son watching from one of the windows as if he longed to join in.

Many would say he was lucky to grow up surrounded by wealth and finery, never having to go hungry or worry about money, but it seemed like no sort of life to me. He had no brothers and sisters to play with, and he couldn't associate with the other children around the castle because of the difference in their ranks (not that they would have played with him anyway, even if they'd been ordered to by the Emperor himself).

If the count had given a damn about his son he would have sent him to be fostered elsewhere in the Empire. In Chorrol, perhaps, where he would have had the chance to play with another child his age and rank. In Bravil he had no one.

"It's you," he said, rubbing his eyes. "You're not supposed to be here."

 _Yeah, no shit._

I put my finger to my lips, and edged closer. "I know, my lord. I'm sorry. But I've got something that you ought to have. I found it, and I didn't... I didn't know what else to do." I allowed my voice to tremble, to make myself sound afraid. He could be arrogant at times, but I suspected that arrogance hid a deep vein of fear and self-doubt. If he thought I was frightened too, he'd be that much more likely to trust me. And, more importantly, less likely to summon the guards and have me thrown into a jail cell.

"It's all right," he said, visibly puffing up. "Don't be afraid. What is it?"

Wordlessly, I laid the locket on the bed.

His eyes widened. "That's... That's my father's. Why do you have it?" His hand snaked out, hovered above it as if he feared to touch it.

"I found it, My Lord. I saw it fall out of someone's pocket."

"Whose pocket?" he demanded. My eyes flicked away, and he wriggled up in bed, a pompous expression on his face. "I order you to tell me."

I took a breath, and met his gaze, trembling slightly as if it took all my willpower to do so. "The... the steward's, sir."

"The steward?"

Silently, I nodded and rolled my lips inwards. "If... if he knew, my lord, he'd... he'd hurt me. Maybe even kill me."

"This is my father's town. No one is mistreated here."

 _Godsblood, if only he knew._ But I could see the doubt in his eyes. His fingers plucked at the locket, as if he longed to pick it up but was afraid to do so. When he finally snatched it up, he darted a guilty little look at me as if he suspected I might tell on him. "I should return this to my father," he said, but his voice was distant. He was trying to figure out the catch, but he clearly didn't know what to do.

I knelt on the bed, reaching towards him. He flinched, clutching the locket against his chest as if he expected me to take it from him. "I think I see how to open it, My Lord."

"It's a puzzle. Only my father knows how to open it."

"I'm good with puzzles."

And still he hesitated, his lips twisting in frustration as he pressed and pinched at the locket, trying to force it open for a long until he finally he gave up. I showed him the solution, let the locket part like an oyster in the cupped palms of my hands. He snatched at it greedily, didn't notice the flash of irritation on my face in his hunger to see the portrait of the woman within. That didn't last. It's hard to stay irritated with someone when they're fighting to keep themselves from crying and their hands are trembling.

 _Just a boy. Just a boy who misses his mother._

"I should... I should give this back to my father," he said.

I nipped my lower lip with my teeth, waited a second, and then, "Does he often let you look at it?"

He met the question with silence. His gaze flicked to me, then back to the locket. "Y...yes," he said. "She was my mother after all." But his voice faded off, and he clenched his fist around the locket.

I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "Who says you have to give it back straight away?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that maybe there's another way." And I pulled out the ledger, placed it on the bed. "I found this too, My Lord."

He flipped it open, ran his gaze down the lines, then shrugged as if it meant nothing to him. "What is it?"

 _Oh, for fuck's sake._ "I... I'm not sure, my lord. I can't read what it says. But it belonged to Scipio and I think it's important. Do you know who Baral is? He's in the guards."

"He's the Redguard."

I nodded. "He's a good man. I reckon if you gave this to him, made him swear an oath not to tell anyone where he got it from, he never would. And then you could hold onto the locket for a bit."

He swallowed. "It's my father's."

"Well, you'd give it back. Eventually."

"After I was done looking at it?"

"Exactly."

His gaze darted up to meet mine. We shared a conspiratorial look until the shy little smile on his lips began to fade "It's not like it'd be stealing," he said, uncertainly. "She was my mother."

"I have a locket very like it, My Lord. From my own mother. It's not nearly so fine, but it's my most precious possession. I'd never let anyone take it from me."

His gaze dropped to the ledger. "Baral, you say?" But he was already hesitating. "What should I tell him?"

"You don't have to tell him anything much," I said. "Only that you were hiding in his office and stumbled across the book by accident. That's all you have to say. But it has to be him, mind. All of the other guards, they'd tell your father. Or the steward. And they'd find out you took the locket. They'll take it away from you. They might even think _you_ stole it." The threat was carefully couched, but I'm not sure the stupid fucker even noticed.

He was staring at the locket now, entranced by the miniature inside. "I will give it back," he said.

"Of course, My Lord."

"It's not like I'd just keep it."

"I know. Will you give the book to Baral, My Lord?"

Silently, he lifted his gaze to mine and nodded.

As far as I know he never returned the locket. The gods only know what has happened to it now. With any luck he still has it, but more likely he has lost it somewhere or had it stolen from him. Hardly surprising, given the crowd he runs with. I have met him since, and found him a weak-willed lonely man, dissolute and paunchy, gone to seed.

Well, I try not to judge: he's not the only one.

~o~O~o~

By the time I left the castle, Brey had roused Elise from her sleep and hauled Armande away from the tavern where he was mourning his failed attempt at seducing the thoroughly unconvinced Redguard mage-to-be. They were waiting for me, huddled on the quay, by the wooden post stained dark with the blood and guts of a thousand Larsius eels. The stink of the river was faint for once, the air relatively fresh thanks to a breeze blowing in off the bay.

"You weren't caught, then?" Armande called out to me as I sprinted along the rope bridge.

"Piece of piss," I said. "He'll keep the locket, give the ledger to Baral."

"How do you know he won't just wimp out and burn it?" Elise asked.

I opened my mouth. Shut it again. I hadn't thought of that. "Um..."

"You can't say he's not confident, can you?" Armande said.

"Or," Elise continued, "he might give it back to the steward." But she was grinning at me. She had faith in me. They all did, even Brey.

I drew a breath. "None of that's going to happen. He'll keep the locket, and he'll give the ledger to Baral."

They kept silent at that. Then at the distant tramp of a guard, we moved on, drifting through the streets towards home. A dog barked frantically, until a man bellowed at it to shut the fuck up. Brey and Armande wandered on ahead, their bickering turning into a skirmish. Elise remained by my side, her proximity making me nervous enough that I was glad of the darkness. She was the one who finally broke the silence. "Jack?"

"Mm?"

"How do you know that the count's son will do what you want him to?"

I had to think about it. "He wants to feel like he's a part of something," I said, eventually. "And he never will be."

"Brey says you're fuckwitted enough to feel sorry for him."

 _Brey's a cunt._ "I think I am in a way. It's no sort of life, that."

"Yeah," she said, grinning up at me. "Who'd want to live in a fucking castle?"

"It's not the castle. His father barely takes any notice of him. No one even likes him much, and his mother is dead. He's got no one to love him."

At that, silence.

I watched Brey and Armande's mock-fight: Armande easily ducked under the sweep of Brey's fist and wrestled him half to the ground, twisting his torso to avoid Brey's jabbing knee connecting with his crotch. Elise laughed, delighted, and I smiled too, but it was as if the air had changed. Like the wind had shifted and something was blowing straight at us. I couldn't concentrate, could hardly breathe because the air seemed too thick, too stifling.

A prickle of unease at the back of my neck.

Armande had his arm wrapped loosely around Brey's neck, and he was trying to demand a yield, only he couldn't stop laughing. Brey was swearing worse than any sailor, tearing at Armande's forearm with his nails. And still he was laughing too.

I could feel Elise watching me, could feel the weight of her dark eyes on my face, like a hand had emerged from the sky to crush me against the ground. And when I looked at her she glanced quickly away.

We were still playing games. Even after everything we'd gone through in Bravil, we were little more than children. We didn't deserve what happened.

~o~O~o~

You must know something of my history by now, so would it really surprise you to know that my plan worked? Gellius did as I asked; he handed over the ledger to Baral and had him swear never to reveal the sources. Or so I must assume, since I never heard how Baral got hold of the ledger.

Pellis's property was searched and the broach was found exactly where I had left it, tucked into a slit in the feather bed. The count was enraged, and within the day Pellis and the steward were in jail, and Baral appointed acting captain of the guard. Word was the post would soon be made permanent.

Gossip is an abundant form of currency in Bravil, perhaps because the more tangible kind is so scarce, and soon it was common knowledge that Pellis and his men were behind the castle robbery, with the steward fully aware and taking a cut, neatly recording the evidence in his ledger because he was a clerk to the bone and that was what clerks do, the fucking idiots.

I'd done it. I'd only fucking gone and done it.

That night we got drunk. Very drunk. Drunker than I had ever been in my life up until that point.

So far I've been derisive of Tertius over the course of this history, but the truth is he wasn't a bad man. He treated us better indeed than many of the other thief masters treated their charges. True, he ripped us off, stole most of our money. Threatened to beat me until I bled every other week, and once in a while he actually went and did it... But he'd grown up on the streets of Bravil himself, had sworn blind he'd leave and never come back. I guess he did for a little while (I suspect there may have been a woman involved), but Bravil's a hard town to get away from, and when he came back it broke his heart.

He wasn't a bad man.

I've done far worse than he ever did, that ageing Imperial with a paunch and too many scars. A description that can all too accurately be applied to me these days.

He'd got wind that we'd been up to something in the castle, and though he couldn't quite figure out what had happened or what we'd done he had loathed Pellis, and he was in a generous mood. A lot of drinks were bought and shoved into my hand. So many I lost track of them. It was a night of celebration, a wild evening of laughter and song.

And it ended like most wild evenings of laughter and song tend to: with me puking my guts up into a gutter while my friends laughed at me. Armande always could hold his liquor and Elise hated the way alcohol made her feel so seldom drank much more than a couple of cups. Brey was whey-faced and none too healthy himself, but even he was smiling at my misery.

Tertius stumbled out of the inn, his arm slung around a woman. "Get it all out," he bellowed at me. "That's the way, boy."

I spat saliva down into the gutter and glared blearily at him. "Fuck off," I groaned, and lowered my head, retched again, but by that time my stomach was well and truly empty.

Tertius and his woman staggered off down the street. I spat again, and leaned against the wall in a vain attempt to steady myself while the world waltzed around me. "I'm never drinking again."

"Ah, you're full of shit," Armande said, slapping my back so hard he made me stagger. "You just have to learn your limits, that's all."

"A cup of small ale," Brey said. "That's about your limit, I reckon."

I eyed him, tempted to start something, but Armande placed his hand on my arm in warning. A guard threaded past on his rounds, eyeing us suspiciously while we loitered and tried to look innocent. Except for me, since I was far too busy trying not to puke again. A less innocent looking group of shits you would be hard-pressed to meet but he finally decided we weren't worth the trouble and moved on.

"Fuck me," Armande murmured. "You did it."

I barely heard him. My hand was pressed against the rotting wood of the shack, while my stomach did loops and somersaults like an acrobat at a fair. Surely my guts had to be empty by now? But apparently not. I bent double with a painful knotting twist of my stomach. A last heaving twist that drew up nothing but a scant mouthful of bile. Armande had sounded triumphant, but I didn't feel anything like triumphant. I felt afraid. As if I'd set something in motion and something awful was going to happen.

Just the drink, I thought, and by the Nine Divines how I hoped that was true.

~o~O~o~

We sat on the sloping roof of the shack and waited for the dawn. Tertius stumbled back home, alone and reeking of skooma, too drunk out of his skull to look us and spot us on the roof above him. Elise had fallen asleep slumped against Brey who was starting to nod off himself, his cheek resting against the top of her head. Soon, I knew, it wouldn't be long before he called it a night and dragged her off to bed and then it would just be me and Armande.

When I spoke I kept my voice low, quiet so as not to wake Brey. "I think we should leave Bravil."

"After all that? I thought you said you didn't want to."

"I didn't back then. Things are different now. We're older now. We're not kids any more." _Liar_. "We wouldn't be running away this time." And there I went, lying again. And not just to Armande, but to myself. A habit of a lifetime, and one I'm not sure I'll ever be able to break.

"Where do you think we should go?" He didn't argue, barely even paused before he asked the question. He sounded serious, and my world teetered on the brink of something. It was a dizzying sensation, this feeling of being in charge, the one they all listened to. I wasn't sure I liked it. It made me want to scream at him, to tell him it shouldn't up to me, that I didn't want to be the one who made the decision.

Instead I swallowed, rested my chin on top of my knees. Gulls screeched near the river; they'd found something on which to feast. Maybe another corpse to be poled out and picked clean by scavengers other than the gulls. "The Imperial City."

Armande nodded as if this was what he had expected. "Why now?" he asked, no challenge in the question, just curiosity. He was watching me again.

"Something Minelcar told me. About the Thieves' Guild."

"It don't exist."

"He says otherwise."

Armande considered this. His eyes flicked towards me, lingered for a moment on my face. His expression carefully composed but I thought I saw a flash of worry in his eyes, before he turned his gaze back to Masser's veiled face in the indigo sky. "Minelcar," he said, slowly. "He was the fence Calvus put you onto, right?"

"Yeah."

"Sure we can trust him?"

I snorted, gave him a look. "Gods no. I only knew him for a couple of minutes and he tried to cheat me." Maybe even seduce me, but I was damned if I was going to tell Armande that. Especially since I'd very nearly succumbed.

A lazy smile from Armande. "No honour amongst thieves."

"Fuck that," I said with feeling. The tiredness was starting to creep up on me, the nausea in my stomach returning in waves. I should have gone to bed really, but the thought of stretching out on the thin bedroll which provided virtually no cushioning against the wooden floor boards made my body ache in dread. Better to stay up. If I stayed up, maybe the hangover wouldn't be able to find me. It was already searching, and, gods, I wasn't looking forward to the moment when it made its discovery. It was going to be a bad one. "Why can't thieves have honour?"

"You mean apart from the fact that they're thieves?" Armande raised his eyebrows at me. "You really are drunk."

"Yeah, I know." I collapsed on my back. "But still... I thought the Thieves' Guild was supposed to be about... shit, I don't know."

"Stealing from arseholes who deserve it? Redistributing wealth?"

I grunted. "And righting the wrongs of society." Lying down really wasn't helping. Everything spiralled around me, and each wave of nausea stronger than the last. Too easy to imagine my body tilting sideways, plunging off the roof. I pushed myself up into a sitting position, my mouth flooding with saliva.

 _Fuck. Never drinking again._

"Yeah, well my guess is most thieves join because they want to redistribute wealth right into their own pockets." Armande thumped my shoulder. "Not everyone's as noble as you, Jack."

"Ugh, don't. I think I'm going to throw up again."

"And you're never so noble as when you're puking your guts out into the street."

"Fuck you."

Armande laughed, stretched out his legs while I breathed hard, fighting the nausea.

Then: "Oh, shiiiiit..." I half-slid off the roof, scattering shingles ahead of me, and collapsed onto the platform with a painful bang to my knee. I vomited over the edge of the platform, while Armande laughed above me. There was nothing to bring up now, just stringy foul-tasting bile. I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand when the wrenching of my stomach had finished.

Armande was grinning at me over the edge of the roof. "All done?"

"Um..." I rose to my feet, unsteadily and placed my hand against the wall, rested my forehead against the back of my hand. "Think so..."

"You really can't handle your drink, can you?"

"I can handle my drink fine," I lied. "That ale had gone bad."

Armande chuckled. "Weird, I was drinking it too and I feel fine."

"Yeah... but you're a Redguard freak."

"Imperial pig." He slipped off the roof, and slammed his shoulder into mine. A pause, his arm slung loosely around my upper back. "You sure you're okay?"

"Ask me again in a couple of hours," I said, gloomily. His snigger didn't help my mood.

He leaned against the railings. It wasn't yet light, but the town was starting to wake up. The bakers were already at work, and we could smell the yeasty scent of baking bread coiling through the streets. My stomach growled at the thought of splitting apart a freshly baked bread still hot from the oven. Maybe slathering it with butter if the baker had any to spare or had been foolish enough to leave it in arms' reach. Steaming and warm enough to melt the butter, the crust crackling as I bit into it. Or maybe even a sweetroll. Anything, really, as long as it soaked up whatever alcohol might still be lurking in my stomach.

"You know you don't..." My voice was hoarse and it took me a moment before I could bring myself to say it. "I'll understand if you don't want to come with me..."

"You fucking serious?" Armande's flash of anger made me flinch, made my hands curl tight on the railing. "Of course we'll come. Ain't nothing for us in Bravil, Jack. There never was. So yeah, if you're fucking off to the Imperial City to make your fortune of course I'll come. Elise too. And Brey, although he'll bitch like all the daedra in Oblivion about it. We'll come."

I blinked. Tears prickled at my eyes, blurring my vision. I turned my head away from Armande so he couldn't see.

"You're not going to throw up again, are you?" he asked.

"No." My voice twisted with the ache in my throat.

"Gods, are you crying? You're worse than my little sister."

"Fuck off."

Armande's hand rested on my back. "Want something to eat? Maybe line your stomach? Couple of sweetrolls might sort you out."

"You're not going to bed?"

"Nah. Don't seem much point now."

I straightened up, gave a surreptitious swipe at my cheeks. "Fuck it, why not?"

We moved down the steps, chasing the smell of baking bread. I squinted at the sky, the indigo streaked with a reddish glow. I took it for the sunrise at first, realised with a creeping sense of dread that it couldn't be since it lay to the west.

I caught hold of Armande's arm. "Hey, you see that?"

He glanced around,and followed my pointing finger. I was still hoping that nothing was wrong, but that hope came crashing down when I saw the fear flash across his face. "Shit. That's a fire. Come on." He grabbed my arm, tugging me down the street.

It's impossible to describe how deep the terror of fire runs in a town like Bravil, where the buildings are built primarily of wood, and thousands are crammed into far too small a space. That terror is instinctive and cuts to the bone. Even those who have turned away from the older gods and superstitions to the Nine Divines have at least one shrine to a hearth god to protect against fire. After a long hot summer, when the shacks have been baked dry as kindling, a blaze could take out half the town before resources could be marshalled to stop it.

A couple of years back, the filthy rushes on the floor of a shack caught fire thanks to a smouldering skooma pipe dropped from the hand of a passed-out addict. Thirty-three people died, some choking to death on the smoke, others burning to death. The vast majority were crushed in the ensuing panic, and not all of them were that close to the fire.

We ran through town, hammering on doors, bellowing, "Fire! Fire!" and leaving people in our wave, confused or frightened or convinced we were playing a trick. A mother gathered her squalling children about her, a ravenous nursing baby tightening its grip on her breast as if it suspected she might be about to force it to disengage, while an Argonian squared up to Armande. "You think this is funny, boy?"

Armande shoved him, gestured at the sky. "Do we look like we're fucking joking? Can't you smell the smoke? Use your fucking eyes, lizard!"

For a moment I was sure the Argonian would punch him, and the mother must have thought so too because she'd started to back away into her house. They both stopped, eyes flaring wide with fear at the smell of smoke and the sound of a distant scream. The rest of the town had woken up to the danger.

A guard was trying in vain to calm the panicked townsfolk, who were fleeing in all directions. Some were trying for the river and others for the gates, and there were one or two who seemed to be trying to flee in every direction at once, succeeding only in running in increasingly panicked circles.

Many were trying to save as many of their possessions as they could, much of it petty and tawdry and certainly not worth risking their lives for, but still they clung onto it: so much crap that it spilled over their arms when they were jostled and it seemed that anything that hit the ground was fair game for others to make grabs for them. Fights broke out, adding to the panic. Yet another thing for the guards to deal with, and they were losing the fight.

We passed a woman clinging to her husband's shirt, trying to drag him away from their pile of dropped possessions and the looters picking over them, shrieking at him to leave it, just leave it, it's not worth it.

The guard had given up trying to break up the fight. He'd taken off his helmet and was digging his fingers through his hair. He looked like he was on the verge of running away himself and visibly flinched when Armande called out, "Can we help?"

That earned us a startled look. He stared at us, then seemed to shake himself. He tugged his helmet back on, expression hardening as he took back control and pointed across town. "Get to the Mages' Guild," he ordered. "Changes are they know already but hammer on their door, do anything you can to rouse them. About time that bunch of fucking sorcerers made themselves useful."

Armande was already backing away, moving towards the guild. "Yessir."

"Thank you, citizen. Now fuck off." With renewed strength of purpose he turned to bellow at the struggling couple and the looters, and began trying to organise them into forming a human chain from the river to the heart of the fire.

I followed Armande, froze as I passed the entrance to the main street, and saw the blaze. The fire was already starting to spread. It could tear through half the street before the mages roused themselves.

But that wasn't what sobered me up.

"Oh _gods_."

Armande glancing back, impatiently. "Come on! We don't have time." And then he saw my expression and he faltered. "What's wrong?"

"That's Calvus's house. _Fuck._ " I pressed my hand over my mouth, then caught myself, waved him on. "Get to the guild. Go."

"But–"

" _Go_!"

He nodded, backed away, then turned and sprinted away down the street. I ran the other way, towards the burning building, while people shoved past me, yelling at me, at each other, at the gods, a panicked mass like a river in full flood.

An elderly beggar woman grabbed me, gabbling in an ancient Nibonese dialect that sounded like her mouth was filled with pebbles. She pinched at my cheeks, trying to drag me back up the street. Trying, bless her, to save my life, although in my panic she seemed more like a hungry hagraven testing to see if she'd plumped me up enough to eat. I extricating myself, fighting the urge to shove her away, and forced myself on, yelling Calvus's name. My feeling of dread was growing, because whatever had happened here, I knew it was my fault, and if he was dead... Oh gods, if he was dead...

"Calvus!" Relief surged through me when I saw him fighting to get past a guard who was trying to stop him from rushing back into the house.

"Stop it! You crazy old bastard, you want to get yourself killed?" the guard was saying.

"But my books, everything I own, all my papers..." Calvus's face had gone white as bone. The reflection of the flames in his half-blind eyes made it look like he was filled with fire.

"Dibella's tits, that house was filled with paper? No wonder it went up so fast."

"I have to–"

"No!" The guard shoved him backwards, and Calvus staggered back into me so hard he almost knocked me over. I caught him, felt how fragile his shaking body was beneath his robes.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Be careful. He's an old man."

The guard looked little more than a boy, frightened and out of his depth. He stabbed his finger at me. "You know him? Get him out of here. Crazy bastard keeps trying to go inside."

"It's his house. Everything he owns is in there."

"Well, now everything he owns is going to be ash."

Calvus shuddered, and to my horror began to weep. At a loss, I wrapped my arms around him. He jerked convulsively, and I tightened my arms around him to stop him from stumbling towards the building. Pulling him away as gently as I could, which wasn't very. With the heat of the fire scorching my cheeks, I was a long way past being gentle. The flames leapt from house to house, the smoke black against a sky streaked with pink and orange. Finally the sunrise had deigned to make its appearance.

"My books," Calvus whispered.

"They're gone, I'm sorry." I coughed, lungs choked with the smoke. With a deafening creak, his house collapsed, drowning out the sound of the guard screaming for the mages. Sparks showered out like meteors, and the rolling wave of scorching air shoved me backwards. For the second time in my life, I was frozen in place, watching my world go up in flames.

 _Run. Run, you stupid fuckers._

"We have to go, Calvus." I tugged on his arm, and he stumbling numbly after me. Away from the scorching heat, away from the thick smoke choking our lungs. But everywhere we turned to go it seemed like the fire had cut us off. Like we were trapped in a labyrinth of flames, which shifted every time it looked like we might be about to take the final turn and stumble out into safety.

A flash of colour ahead, a surge of magic and the air chilled around me suddenly, filled with needle-sharp shards of ice. It beat back the flames, sizzling, and I heard shouting, saw a handful of robed figures through the smoke.

"The mages," I said, in relief. "Thank the gods. They'll put it out."

Too late for Calvus. I nipped my tongue with my teeth, hard enough to hurt, and dragged him onwards. He was breathing hard, more affected by the smoke than I was. "Jack, wait..." Another bout of coughing. I ignored him, thinking that the presence of the mages might have been more reassuring if they hadn't been bickering amongst themselves about the best spell to extinguish the flames.

Another building collapsed. Every inch of my skin felt like it was burning. The fire had spread so far and so quickly it might be beyond even the limited skills of the Bravil Mages' Guild.

"The whole quarter could burn," I whispered, turning to look back. "Oh _gods_."

"Jack." Calvus caught me, drew me close. His face was blackened with smoke, and for the first time I saw the swelling bruise on the side of his face, how his lip had been split. "It was Pellis, Jack. Pellis did this."

"What are you talking about?"

The scuff of a footstep behind me. The smell of sweat. I would have reacted sooner if it hadn't been for the smell of smoke choking my lungs and the crackling of the fire.

I was too slow.

A blade against my throat. Blunted, but sharp enough to kill me. And a hoarse voice hissed in my ear, tight with malice and fury. "You little shit," Pellis said. "You're a dead man."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: A huge thank you to everyone who's been reading this, and in particular to all those who have left comments. I really do appreciate every single one, and they all, no matter how brief, make a massive difference, so thank you. Thanks are also due** **to tafferling for betaing.**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

 _"The Shadow becameth the Hag,  
Bent and twisted, in her Cloak and Hood.  
From her faceless Shadows, she hissed."_

– _Song Of Hrormir_

As Calvus took a step towards me, the dagger tightened against my throat. "You shout 'murder'," Pellis warned, "and the boy's dead."

"I'm dead anyway," I snapped. "You just said so."

The dagger bit into my skin. "You're a smart-arse," he hissed. "From what I hear, you're the one who got me thrown into jail. A man's got to repay a favour like that."

Another surging gust of ice crystals. Other people's magic bunched and unknotted in my chest, accompanied by the distant sound of the mages calling to one another. Hope flared briefly, but they'd never hear us above the noise of the fire.

"You can't seriously think the boy was responsible?" Calvus said. "He's just a street urchin."

"An ' _urchin_ '? I don't think I've ever been called an 'urchin' in my life," I said weakly. Pellis snorted under his breath, jerked the dagger from my throat, and slammed me back against the wall.

I'd always thought of him as a fat man, slow and unthreatening, but without his armour it was clear that most of his bulk was muscle, with only his jowls and a thin layer of fat making him look overweight. He looked different. Dangerous.

"'A boy,'" he said. "An Imperial boy of about fifteen–"

"I'm _seventeen_ ," I said, and he punched me in payment, so hard it dizzied me.

"That's for interrupting."

Calvus flinched. "He's just a boy, Captain. He has nothing to do with any of this."

Pellis pointed the dagger at him. "One step closer, and I'll cut his shitting cock off, I swear. You ask me, these little shits need culling."

And still Calvus was trying to reason with him. "Captain Pellis, please–"

"Calvus, get out of here," I said. "Get the guards!"

Pellis's fist tightened around my throat. "You go, and I'll kill him."

"He's going to kill me anyway!"

And Calvus, shaken as he was, could see the truth in this. His gaze met mine, and in his eyes I saw a flash of regret. Then he took a step backwards and opened his mouth to scream.

Pellis swore. Two strides and he was on the old man, moving far quicker than I'd expected, far quicker than I'd ever seen him move before. He clamped his hand over Calvus's mouth, jerked back the dagger.

"No!" I slammed into him blindly, drove my fist into his gut. He gave a sharp bark, an exhalation that stank of sour ale and bad breath, and shoved Calvus aside. The old man crumpled with a cry of startled pain, and my mind flared red with fury. Not that it did me much good, since Pellis had hooked his forearm around my neck.

I fought, wrenching at his grip, twisting and bucking like an eel. Pellis's breathing sped up, grew frantic. "Godsdamn," he said, under his breath. "Godsdamn you, _stop_ –"

I thwacked my skull back into his face like a struggling toddler, and his nose crunched under the impact.

At first I thought he'd punched me.

I felt it as a blow to my side – weird place to punch someone, I thought in the moment before I realised I'd been stabbed. There was an instant of mingled fury and fear, but all of that was swept away by a warm spreading numbness that bubbled up inside me like a hot-spring.

 _Something on the blade. Fuck. He's poisoned me._

His shocked eyes met mine, as if he'd expected to stab me even less than I had.

"I didn't..." He licked his lips. "Oh gods, I didn't..."

I bit him. Sank my teeth into the fleshy muscle of his dagger arm. He screamed, nails of his other hand scrabbling at my face, at my eyes, as I fought for the dagger. He wrenched at my hair in an attempt to tear me away. Strange, how little it hurt, how the prickling in my scalp felt like it was happening to someone else. My limbs were no longer my own, as if they'd been grafted onto my body by someone who didn't have a clue what he was doing.

I bit harder, grinding my teeth into his flesh. His grip on the knife loosened, and I tried to snatch at it, but my numbed fingers refused to close around the hilt. It fell to the ground.

 _You useless fucking_ –

Then nothing like coherent thought as he drove his fist into my throat. It was a weak blow, but enough to knock me to the ground.

Pellis stumbled away, examining the bite in his arm. "You. Little. Shit."

My fingers convulsed at the caked soil, the deep rut carved into the ground and baked hard by the long summer. The dagger was right there. If I could only will my arm to pick it up–

Pellis kicked me hard in the ribs. Knocked me over onto my back. The dawn was stained blood-red. There was no pain, no sensation other than the silvery itching in my side and the shiver of a forgotten memory I couldn't identify.

Then he kicked me in the balls.

 _That_ registered as pain, even if nothing else seemed to. A man's crotch is more closely connected with the brain than any other part of his body, and the blinding pain pierced the pleasant numbness that had enveloped me. And once the barrier was weakened, all my other wounds chose that moment to make themselves known. My scalp, my ribs, the bleeding wound in my side: a discordant tangle of pain that left me weeping and begging for mercy while Pellis kicked the shit out of me. I was so helpless I couldn't even roll up to protect my tender parts because of the stab wound.

And then respite, although not much of one since the break from the kicking only gave me ample time to appreciate how much pain I was in and how utterly fucked I was. Calvus had finally managed to climb to his feet. Pellis swung towards him, breathing hard, the whites of his eyes showing.

"The guards," Calvus said. He sounded like he was underwater. "The guards are coming."

Pellis spat on me. "So fucking what?"

"You can get away. If you go now. If you run. You don't..." Calvus heaved in a breath. "You don't have to go back to jail."

"You stupid old bastard." Pellis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Don't you get it? I'm already a dead man. I'm as dead as this fucker here. Scipio's already dead, and I'm next. Unless I can kill everyone that knows about this whole fucking mess he'll kill me."

"Scipio's dead?" I tried to say. My words slurred together, sounding like gibberish.

"What in Oblivion was on that blade?" Calvus whispered.

"You've no idea what you've done, have you? Neither of you." Pellis punctuated his next words with a series of kicks to my abdomen. "You. Stupid. Little. Shit." When he stopped, pushing his hands through his greying hair, he was almost crying. " _Fuck_."

I almost felt sorry for him. The rut in the ground was digging into my spine, but every time I tried to move, waves of dizzying agony swept through me. The world was blurring; nothing seemed quite real. If I moved too much I might fall through the earth, through the mud and bedrock, find myself plunging into Oblivion.

"Captain," Calvus's voice was very distant. An echo at the very edges of my thoughts. I stared up at the sky, at the way the coils of smoke from the not-quite-yet extinguished fire seemed to dance with the clouds. Like lovers. Like the Altmer and the Dunmer, defying everything. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. "You don't have to do this–"

"Shut up." Pellis straddled me. His hands closed around my throat, but his grip didn't tighten. He was crying now, tears spilling down his cheeks. He gave a compulsive jerk of his fingers, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He breathed hard, muttered something, and then his face twisted and he _squeezed_ , his fingers biting deep into my throat. I couldn't breath. I was choking, my hands scrabbling at his arms. But his grip loosened, tears pattering onto my face like raindrops.

"I can't," he said, all tears and snot and hitching breath. "I can't."

"You don't have to–" Calvus again.

"Shut up. Don't say a fucking word." He swiped his face, leaving an inch of snot smeared across his cheek, reached for my throat again. His hands flexed, then his gaze darted to the side. To the rut in the earth beneath me.

He'd seen the dagger.

It's one thing to strangle a man; it takes commitment and Pellis always was lazy. But with a dagger you can murder before you even let yourself realise you're even going to do it. It takes no effort at all, really, to slit a throat. It's _easy_.

If he picked up that dagger I was a dead man.

Everything Elise had taught me came flooding back. Teeth and nails. Every tender spot in a person's body. My nails hooked, gouged at his eyes, caught on that handy little lip of bone. A wet sucking sensation. His scream of pain like the world rippling all around me. Raindrops on the surface of a glassy lake.

 _I'm so fucked,_ I thought, even as my hand closed on the hilt of the dagger. A backhanded blow to my face that felt like a thunderclap, and then he was on me again, teeth bared, spitting obscenities into my face. Shaking me so hard the back of my head slammed into the ground, until all I could see was smoke, all I could feel was raindrops on my face and the storm of dying.

And then there was nothing but my hand tight around the blade. The weight of his body and how it wrenched as the blade found its way between his ribs. A convulsive jerk, a flash of shock in his eyes which mirrored mine. He coughed. Blood spilled over his lips, as though he were an overfilled glass. Some of the excess poured off. An offering to his hearth-god. Guess he was Nibenese through and through.

 _Fuck,_ I thought, staring up at the sky. I felt like a fire extinguished by sweat and blood and tears and snot. _I'm dying._

And then: _I have just killed a man._ That thought pinned me to the ground more surely than the weight of his body. His blood mingled with mine while the poison, whatever the hell it was, seeped through my veins and the world itself broke apart at the edges and shadows clouded the sky.

Calvus lowered himself to his knees by my side. The icy touch of his hands against my forehead burned. "Jack? Are you–"

"I killed him." My voice sounded distant, dream-like. "I killed him."

"Gods, what was on that blade?"

My mouth opened but I had no answer to give him. The world was spinning and I think if I'd tried to speak the only word that emerged would have been " _Whee_ ," which the gods knew I couldn't bear to have as my last word.

Calvus struggled with Pellis's dead weight, trying to roll the corpse off me. I would have helped, but every movement made the world dance harder. My body was strangely numb, yet some things I registered with pin-sharp clarity. How the dry earth scratched at the back of my neck. The burning around the stab wound. And inside my skull the slowed-down sensation of tearing cloth, each fibre stretched to breaking point then snapping, one at a time.

"This is what dying feels like," I murmured, and made a noise, something that might almost have been a laugh.

"You're not dying, you stupid boy. Get up."

"M'not stupid."

"You are if you keep lying there in the dirt like that. Get up. Now. That's an order."

"Y'right. Y'right. Just..." I set my hands against the mud to push myself up. My body felt feather-light and I surged upwards so unexpectedly I almost teetered over. Calvus tottered with the weight of me, as I slumped against him, my face pressed into his robes. "Your house burned."

The weight of his hand against my back. "Yes, it did."

"All your books. Your papers. Gone."

"Not sure this is really the time, Jack. Help me–"

I collapsed.

He swore, a faint muffled invocation to Mara, as mild as he was, and screamed for help.

"My fault," I murmured. "All of it." Calvus was tugging me, trying to urge me back to my feet, and through the haze of confusion clouding my thoughts, I knew he was right. I forced myself back up to my feet. The world had become a river streaming around me, and my legs would never hold me against the current. I sucked in air and felt like I was drowning. And through the surging water I thought I saw a flash of blond hair.

 _Brey._

"Thank the Nine," Calvus muttered, and raised his voice. "Please, help me with him. He's been poisoned and he's too heavy for me to–"

I blinked and the figure was gone, swept away.

And I was too. I collapsed again and this time I hadn't the strength to stand. Time caught, slowed to a crawl, sped up again.

Footsteps approached.

It was Baral, the newly minted Captain of the Guard, his gaze shifting from me and the jagged ugly bleeding wound in my side, to Calvus, and finally to Pellis's corpse.

"What the fuck happened here?" he said, and that was the last thing I heard before everything went black.

~o~O~o~

There's one perk about being stabbed with a poisoned blade: at least I didn't have to suffer through my hangover. Instead, there was just seething agony and the spasms of the poison being voided from my system.

Silver linings.

The poison was a nasty one, leaving me with waking dreams that seemed so real they could hardly be called dreams. Swarms of insects seething over me, pincers piercing and stretching holes in my skin for my tormentors to burrow inside. Or invisible flames crisping my skin like crackling. Hot roast pork and rendered fat.

Time had no meaning for me, but I had weeks of this. Weeks of slipping in and out of consciousness, never knowing what was real and what was dreams, never knowing which of the visitors to my sickbed were living and which were dead.

Mia and Elise stood at the door, arms wrapped around each other like sisters, their heads pressed together. Jory loomed at the foot of my bed, his throat a gaping wound, while the Altmer and the Dunmer knelt on either side of me. The Altmer sang as she brought a blade to my throat. The beeswax candles cast shadows on the walls and those shadows became a flock of ravens, the sound of my frantic breath the beat of their wings.

And through it all Armande visited. Sometimes Elise came too, but more often it was just him. Always him. Hunched in the chair by the door. Talking to me in words that made no sense. Forcing liquid into my mouth while I choked and spat and begged him to leave me alone.

I dreamed and in the dream I stood on the banks of Niben Bay, the water smooth and glassy. Elise knelt in the shallows, her head bent, her hands resting on her thighs. I called her name, splashed into the water from the broken jetty, and when I fell to my knees beside her, her arm snaked out and grabbed mine. She was a dead thing, a rotted thing, her nails ragged and torn. Hollow eyes, bared teeth. The smell of rot and decay, and her lips peeling back.

"Found you," she whispered, and it was my mother's voice. Sing-song, like a child playing hide and seek.

I wrenched away with a cry of terror. Black clouds swarmed across the sky, blotting out the sun. Not clouds at all, but a vast flock of ravens. Ink spilled across the sky, until it was as dark as night.

 _Something's coming_.

Strange how comforting that thought was.

Elise that was not Elise climbed to her feet, drops of water running down her naked body. She stared at the edge of the lake, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her ruined face.

Someone stood on the far shore watching, a figure wreathed in shadows. The muddy bottom of the lake sucked at my feet, the water glassy and reflective. A sensation like a fingernail scratched at the back of my neck. I looked down, and the face of the reflection staring back at me was a pale oval of featureless skin.

~o~O~o~

I woke screaming, clawing at sweat-soaked bed covers. My body felt clammy, my limbs as heavy as if my bones had been transformed to lead. And a voice murmured, "The fever's broken. He'll be..." It trailed off into unintelligible whispers. Fearful, I reached a trembling hand up to my face, certain I'd find nothing but a flat expanse of skin. Instead, I found my nose, still tender and swollen. My lips and chin. My eyes. All present and painful but more or less accounted for. I sank back in relief on the unfamiliar bed, stared up at the unfamiliar stone ceiling as footsteps came closer.

Armande appeared in the doorway, clutching a steaming ceramic cup. "You're awake."

My mouth was as leaden and sluggish as the rest of me, but he seemed unconcerned by my inability to speak and knelt on the bed beside me, bringing the cup to my lips. "Drink this." His voice was subdued, his eyes puffy and bloodshot.

I worked my mouth, found my voice hoarse and cracked, but intelligible.

"Why are the ravens here?" I asked.

I beg your pardon, dear reader. Did I forget to mention the ravens?

There were three of them. One perched on the chest of drawers, and another on the back of a chair. The largest stood on the foot of the bed, ruffling its wings and eyeing me as if trying to work out which part of me would make the tastiest morsel.

"I've no idea," Armande said softly. "Jack, you have to drink this."

My hand closed on his wrist. "I will, I will... but can't you get rid of them? They keep whispering at me."

"Whispering ravens. Right."

"They won't shut up."

"Yeah." He sighed. "They're not the only ones."

The largest raven hopped onto the bedclothes by my feet. My eyes filled with tears. "Nate, _please_."

Armande went still. He lowered his head, stared hard at the blanket as if something had been written there. "I'll get rid of them," he promised finally. "Just drink this and I'll shoo them out, okay?"

I nodded eagerly, and he brought the cup to my lips again. The first sip made me gag. It was like drinking Larsius water left to go stagnant for a month. I spluttered, but Armande was insistent, bringing the cup to my lips again until I'd choked down every drop.

Gradually a lassitude slipped through me. The pain receded to the very edge of my consciousness, until I no longer cared about the ravens. Not even the biggest, which had hopped boldly right up to my head, preening, while it eeny-meenied which of my eyeballs it should sample first. Nor did I care that Armande was reneging on his promise to shoo them out, which meant that I'd drank the filthy water for nothing.

None of that mattered because I was certain that if I put my hands to my face again I would find it gone, my nose flattened, my mouth and eyes covered over with flaps of smooth skin.

"Can't peck a man's eyes out if he ain't got any," I told the raven, and laughed as it cawed bitterly. Armande's uneasy glance told me I was right about my face.

Shit. Something I'd forgotten. I pulled myself up in bed, flopping around like a landed fish. "Armande, wait–"

He rolled his eyes wearily. "Right. Sorry, I forgot." And he flapped his arms in a half-hearted gesture presumably intended to shoo out the ravens. They watched him, distinctly unshooed.

"Don't worry about the ravens. They can't get me now. But Elise..." I lifted my hand to my face, couldn't bring myself to touch it. A chill thread twined through me, a memory of the dream. Gods help me, I didn't want to be _no one_. "If Elise visits, tell her about my face first. I don't want to scare her."

Armande stared at me. He opened his mouth to say something, and then his face seemed to crumple inwards. His eyes squeezed shut. The candlelight seethed around him. "Yeah," he said, his voice broken. "I'll tell her."

The last of my strength fled. I sank back into the bed. The shadows reached up to claim me. And the bed-frame was no longer fashioned from solid oak, but the skeletal corpses of a thousand birds: ravens and crows and jackdaws and magpies. Their bones knotted together in intricate joints, their beaks and claws forming spiralling patterns on the bed head. A blanket woven from their feathers covered me. And a woman watched from the darkness, swathed in shadows, her eyes fixed on me. I felt no fear, only weariness and longing and a sense of having come home.

Cradled in the corpses of birds, I let the shadows claim me.

~o~O~o~

The next time I woke up, the ravens were gone, the shrouded woman was gone, and the bed was just a bed. Which in itself was pretty remarkable since I hadn't slept in a bed for well over twelve years.

There were still plenty of shadows though: the room was a gloomy one, with its walls of stone, a solid looking wooden door and no windows. And it stank: of incense and the myriad reek of sweat and shit and piss and vomit, and all of it, aside from the incense and the inescapable stench of the Larsius, _mine_.

I sat up, winced at a stabbing pain in my side. Found myself dressed in a nightshirt I'd never seen before, rucked up and tangled about my thighs. It was better quality than anything I'd ever owned, but stained with sweat and blood and pus, and very probably some other bodily excretions I didn't want to think too hard about. Gods help the poor washerwoman who had to deal with it.

I rolled onto one buttock and tugged the nightshirt up. A bandage was wrapped tight around my waist, and in the very centre an archery target: a single dot of blood surrounded by a corona of yellow pus. Even the slightest pressure felt like a foot-long needle driving into my side, and I bit down on a sob. Breathed through the pain until the urge to vomit or cry or something equally unmanly had passed.

When I jerked back the covers, I felt for an instant feathers beneath my fingers rather than rough wool. A convulsive shudder made me clench my fists.

Nothing but wool. No birds, no skeletons. No lingering fragments of dreams that weren't quite dreams. _Nothing there._

I swung my legs off the bed, used the nightstand to help steady me. My legs felt barely able to support my weight as I limped across the room.

A pile of neatly folded clothes had been left in the dresser. It took me a moment to recognise the clean shirt on top of the pile as my own, now freshly pressed and patched and smelling sweetly of lavender. I grabbed it, felt for the hidden pocket and found it empty.

"No, no, no."

Panic sheared through me. The dreams might be gone, but my mind was still out of balance, my world thrown askew. As I dropped back on the bed, crying, the door opened. Not Armande this time, but Calvus, and behind him stone steps, leading away to gods knew where.

"You're up," he said. "What's wrong, Jack? Is it the ravens again?"

 _The ravens. Fuck_. I shook my head, wiped my tears with a shaking hand. "It's not... I'm not myself, I know. There was something I can't seem to find, but..."

"Your locket?"

My gaze snapped up. "You saw it? Do you know who took it?"

"No one took it." He crossed to the nightstand and opened a drawer. "It's right here waiting for you." And he drew it out, carefully handed it to me.

Even then I felt ashamed at how greedily I snatched it from him and snapped it open to stare at the portrait of my mother. How hungry I was for the way the chain slipped through my fingers, how warm it felt clutched in the palm of my hand.

Calvus turned his gaze away, moved to an oil burner on the dresser. He anointed it with a few drops of something that crackled, sending out acrid smoke that hit the back of my throat, made my eyes sting. "Redwort oil," he explained. "It should help purify the air. Help your wound heal. It's been giving the healers some problems, that wound, but I think you're over the worst of it now."

"Healers? Where am I?"

"The Great Chapel of Mara," he explained.

"So I am still in Bravil."

"Of course. Where else would you be?"

"I thought..." _A lake surrounded by darkness. A sky clouded with ravens._ "Shit, I don't know. These dreams I've been having."

"Ah yes. Your talking ravens. They're not talking now, are they?"

"They've fucked off."

"Thank the Nine for that. They were a little bit unnerving."

I shifted, felt the mattress underneath me, ran my hand along the wooden frame. "The bed's just a bed. Is my face just a face?"

He gave me a puzzled smile. "What else would it be?"

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter. Just a dream."

He smiled again, but it seemed forced. "Do you think you could manage to eat something? There's a chicken broth that smells fairly appetising."

"I'm not sure..." And then my stomach gave a rolling growl, knotting with hunger. "Actually, yeah, I think I could give it a go."

He chuckled. "Ah, the eternal appetite of youth. I think I'd do just about anything to be a young man again."

The broth turned out to be more than just fairly appetising. It was delicious, and my heart gave a leap when I saw it came with a hunk of buttered bread. The broth itself was light and clear, a few droplets of fat floating on the top. It was flavoured with lemon and ginger, and when I stirred it, cubed carrot, shreds of chicken and rice floated to the top. I took a few slurping mouthfuls while Calvus watched, amused by my greed.

And still, although the soup had finally assuaged a hunger I hadn't even been aware of, I felt uneasy. The edge of a memory lingered, tantalisingly out of reach. Between every mouthful I meant to ask him, fully intended to beg him to tell me what had happened, but each time I couldn't bring myself to speak. And so I took another spoonful instead, like the coward I was.

 _I'll finish the soup first,_ I thought. _And then I'll ask._

"Tell me about your dreams," Calvus said. "The ravens in particular, they're intriguing."

The spoon paused on its way to my mouth. The dreams, what I could remember of them, still terrified me, but they seemed a safer topic of conversation than the real world. While it's possible his instinct might have been purely academic, I had the feeling that I wasn't the only one avoiding painful memories.

In between mouthfuls I told him everything that I could remember. The ravens. The lake beneath the darkened sky and the faceless reflection. I trailed off, pulled off another hunk of bread with trembling fingers.

 _Elise._ Something about her... Something I'd forgotten. A feeling like a painful tooth; I wanted to probe it but was afraid of what I might find.

"Perhaps they aren't dreams at all," Calvus said, when it was clear I wasn't going to say anything more. "What do you know about the Daedra?"

 _Ask him about Elise._

I dipped the buttered bread in the soup and took another bite. It no longer tasted quite so delicious. "About as much as I know about the Nine, so nothing really."

"A woman shrouded with shadows and accompanied by ravens is about as clear description of Nocturnal as I've ever heard, and the world of darkness you describe could very well be her plane of Oblivion. It's strange that you should dream about her if you know nothing of her though. I have a copy of–" He broke off, blinking rapidly. "That is to say," he continued in a softer, sadder voice, "I _had_ a copy of _The Doors of Oblivion_."

The sodden bread had melted on my tongue. The memory at the edge of my mind was creeping closer, and it felt like a trap tightening around me. I forced the mouthful of bread down. "Was it in the fire?" I asked, my voice numb.

A moment passed before he answered, and his voice was as hollow as mine. All his amusement and his academic interest had gone. "Everything I had was in the fire. All my books. Everything I owned, aside from a few investments I was prudent enough to make here and there." He paused. "I wasn't sure if you remembered."

"I didn't. Not at first. Shit, Calvus, I'm so sorry." I forced myself to look at him. "This is all my fault–"

"No, it damned well isn't." He glared at me, a flash of sudden anger in his pale eyes. "You're a boy, Jack. A _child_. If anyone should have known better, it's me."

"Tell me what happened."

"It can wait. You're still weak."

"Calvus, tell me. Please. I need..." My voice cracked. I swallowed hard, shoved the bowl away. He took the tray from me and set it on the dresser. I waited until the urge to weep like a child had passed, until the soreness in my throat had eased. "I need to know."

He sighed, and sat down again. "I don't know all of it, and I doubt we ever will. Some of the details are confused. We know Pellis escaped from jail, but we don't know how. The guard on duty was found drunk, but he swore on the Nine that he hadn't touched a drop and I'm inclined to believe him."

"And Pellis came looking for you? How did he know?"

"I'm not certain. I believe..." His fingers smoothed out the creases on his robes. "I believe someone must have told him to. Someone who knew about my past."

"You mean that you're a forger?"

"I mean my time in jail."

I stared at him. "You used in prison? _You?_ "

"For two and a half years the first time. Four the second." He raised an eyebrow. "Is it really so unbelievable?"

"I just... I didn't think... You don't seem like the type."

"To go to jail?"

"To get caught."

"You flatter me." A faint smile tugged briefly at his lips. "But as it happens you're right. I _was_ damned good. Sadly, I was never quite so proficient at choosing my associates."

"And apparently you still aren't," I said bitterly.

"I'm afraid it's my age," he said. "I'm far too stuck in my ways to change my habits now. You'll understand when you're as old as I am. If by some miracle you ever make it past the age of twenty."

"Ouch. Was it the Thieves' Guild you worked with?"

He shot me a sharp look. "I see Minelcar's been running his mouth. I had a feeling it would be a mistake to get him involved."

"So it does exist?"

He paused, chewing on his upper lip as he seemed to work through a decision in his mind. Finally he gave a nod, shifting his position as if the chair he sat on pained his back. "It exists."

I stared down at the cooling soup, hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I've spent almost seven years of my life behind bars, Jack. Why do you _think_?" He sighed. "I'd assumed no one in Bravil knew about my past, but perhaps I was mistaken. Regardless, Pellis came looking for me and he found me. Even he wasn't stupid enough to believe it was my idea–"

"You told him that?"

"–So he threatened me, and took a torch to my papers. I think he only meant to frighten me, but it got rather out of hand. And then you blundered along."

Gradually, the memories were seeping back, unwelcome as drunkard husbands slinking home. I felt an echo of Pellis's hands around my throat, his tears falling on my face like rain. "And the steward's dead?"

"Yes, as it turns out. Pellis slit his throat in jail."

" _Pellis_ killed him?"

"So the Watch believe."

"'Scipio's already dead, and I'm next'," I said, slowly. "That's what he said, remember? He didn't kill the steward. Someone else did." More memories were flooding back: the wrenching feeling of being stabbed, the way the poison on the blade had slipped slowly through my system, twisting my thoughts. Gooseflesh prickled over my skin, Calvus had stopped talking, and was now staring at his hands, clasped in his lap. I didn't want to ask. Couldn't ask.

I closed my eyes, and heard my own voice, very distant, say, "That's not all, is it?"

"No," he said, quietly. "It's not all."

"What..." _What happened?_ But this time I couldn't bring myself to speak.

Armande's face crumpling inwards. A flash of blond hair and how I'd been convinced it was Brey. Elise, kneeling in freezing water.

 _Elise_.

I started to cry. Calvus flustered around me, and I was barely aware of what he was saying. Curling up, I buried my face in my arms and wept, all the time hating myself for being so useless, for crying like a child.

 _Face it. Face it, you damned coward._

I dropped my arms, furious with myself. Forced myself up. "What happened?"

"Jack, it doesn't–"

"What _happened_?"

A noise in the doorway made us both look up. Armande was standing there, looking older and wearier than I'd ever seen him. He was dressed differently too, a battered leather jerkin, boots. Working men's clothes. "Elise is dead."

I exhaled sharply. Closed my eyes. I'd known. I'd fucking known.

Armande came into the room, his tread heavy and slow. His voice was flat, emotionless. "Pellis broke her neck. She got separated from Brey in the confusion of the fire. He was the one who found her."

"Armande..." I trailed off, unable to think of anything to say. 'I'm sorry I got your sister killed' seemed insufficient somehow.

"You're looking better, Jack." The corners of his mouth twitched. It wasn't anything like a smile. "Actually, no, you don't. You look like shit."

"I feel like shit." _Good, you deserve it._

Calvus coughed awkwardly and excused himself, vanishing silently up the stone steps, while Armande and I stared at each other.

"Armande–"

"Shut up." The word of command rang out. My mouth snapped shut, and I stared at him mutely. "I know what you're going to say, idiot. How sorry you are? How it's all your fault? I don't want to hear it. It's bullshit and I don't want to hear it."

"I know, but–"

" _Jack_."

"Sorry."

"I've been thinking about this a lot, and..." He held up his hands. "Elise knew what she was doing. We all did. We all knew it might be dangerous, and we still listened to you. Wasn't like you didn't tell us what you were doing. If you're to blame for her death, then we're all to blame too."

It sounded rehearsed. I risked a glance at him, saw his gaze was focused on a spot on the stone wall.

"Is that what Brey thinks?" I asked.

"Brey's gone. He left Bravil the day after the fire. Fuck knows where. He didn't say." He scratched at his jaw. "We had a fight."

"What about?"

"He wanted to kill you."

"Oh."

Armande glanced at me. "I mean he literally was going to kill you. I think he'd have done it too if I hadn't stopped him."

"I guess I should say 'thank you.'"

"Yeah, maybe not. Your wound was still pretty bad then. Maybe I only stopped him because I thought you were going to die anyway, and poison would hurt more."

"What I deserved?"

"Yeah. But for what it's worth I'm glad you didn't die."

My gaze dropped to his hands, which were covered in scrapes and bruises. "What happened to your hands?" I asked.

"Oh... I've been helping with some of the rebuilding. The count's done fuck all to help, so someone had to. Almost ten buildings went up in flames, but it could have been a lot worse. No one died."

"Other than Pellis and Elise?"

"Yeah."

I stared at him, fury mingling with guilt and shame. "Why aren't you angry?" I burst out. "It doesn't matter what you say. That's bullshit. This is my fault. Brey was right. So why aren't you angry?"

His eyes flicked towards me with a flash of pain in them so intense I fell silent, sank back into the bed. "I am angry."

"You don't..." The tears were rising up inside me, the wound in my side stabbing with every breath I took. And the soup sat in my stomach, making me feel uncomfortably full and nauseous. "You don't sound it."

"I'm tired. What do you want me to say, Jack? That I'm angry? Yeah, I'm angry. I've never been so angry in my life. But Elise was my sister. I'm the one who was supposed to protect her. And now that son of a bitch has snapped her neck and..." He turned away, made a faint sound in the back of his throat. He was crying. "I was supposed to look after her. My mother made me promise."

 _Shit._ I pushed myself up, trying to stand. Armande pointed at me. "You better not be about to hug me, or I swear on the Nine I'll kill you myself."

I gave a strangled laugh that made my wound spasm. Couldn't bite back the cry of pain. Armande turned towards me in concern as I dropped back onto the bed.

"You okay?"

"I'll live," I gasped through the pain. _Even if I don't deserve it_.

"I'll get someone–"

"No, wait." The pain was already ebbing. Sort of. "I'm okay. Really." He stared at me, doubtfully, but my breathing had eased. I was still in more pain than I'd ever felt in my life before, but at least each breath was no longer filled with splinters. "Armande?"

"What?"

"I was about to hug you."

He stared at me, then started to laugh. "You bastard," he said. "I fucking knew it." Caught between laughter and tears, I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying to hold back both, because each movement was agony. He took a breath, glanced at me. "I'd better go."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"I know, but I got stuff to do, and you need your rest. And you've still got a lot of healing to do. You won't make it all the way to the Imperial City with that wound in your side."

"The Imperial City?"

"It's where we were going to go, wasn't it? See the city, join the guild, make our fortunes? Not like we can stay in Bravil now. Sooner or later someone's going to come sniffing about, asking questions about what really happened."

"I know, but... I didn't think..."

He turned his back on me. A shiver of a memory, the last lingering traces of the dream. Armande shrouded in shadows, and the woman watching from the edge of the room. I was nervous to glance at the foot of the bed in case I saw a raven staring back at me.

"You're all I've got," he said, "Elise is gone and Brey's gone, and so even though you're a crazy bastard with your invisible talking ravens–"

I sniffed, blinking back tears. "My invisible talking ravens say 'fuck you'."

"Almost like they _want_ to find themselves in an invisible pie."

Another involuntary laugh, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the pain.

"I'll send someone down," he said, and this time it was clear there was to be no arguing with him. Instead I thanked him and lay down, the pillow cool against my cheek. Armande paused at the door. "For a while I was sure you were going to die. You're like a brother to me, Jack," he said. "And you're all I've got left."

I stared at his back, couldn't find anything to say. He waited, but only for a moment or two, and then he left, and I was alone. With my dreams and the sickbed reek and the shadows climbing the walls.

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter marks the end of part one. Thank you for reading this far, and if you've enjoyed it, comments are hugely appreciated (as well as constructive criticism).**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are highly appreciated, and thank you for reading.**

* * *

 **PART TWO**

 **Honour Amongst Thieves**

" _If I had money enough to spend,  
And leisure time to sit awhile,  
There is a fair maid in this town,  
That sorely has my heart beguiled.  
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,  
I own she has my heart enthralled;  
Then fill to me the parting glass,  
Goodnight and joy be with you all."_

– The Parting Glass

 **Chapter Nine**

" _Across the morning gold of the lake stood the Imperial City itself, a god's wagon-wheel laid down on an island in the center of the lake. The outer curve of the white wall was half in shadow, and he could make out three of what would – in any other city – be deemed truly spectacular guard towers. But those were dwarfed by the magnificent spoke of the wheel – the White-Gold Tower, thrusting up toward the unknowable heavens."_

– _The Infernal City_ , by Greg Keyes

"It's so big," I breathed.

The Pell's Gate village boys sniggered. The oldest and the boldest batted his eyelashes and repeated my words in a high falsetto, adding, "Oh, please may I touch it?" at the end. Brats, the lot of them but I probably would have done the same thing when I was their age. Fuck it, I'd do the same thing now. I could still be a cocky little shit when I put my mind to it.

Armande leaned on the wall beside me, smiling in amused exasperation. "You're an idiot."

Then a stone struck the wall of the ruined fort a little too close to where I was sitting and he wasn't smiling any more. He swung around and the brats scattered so fast it made me laugh. Even if it did sting a little that they weren't nearly as scared of me as they were of Armande. Not so long ago I'd've been able to make them regret that mistake. Fat chance of that now.

I sat perched on the crumbling remains of a wall that had encircled a ruined old fort on the edge of Lake Rumare. The wind that rolled in off the water from the north carried the first bite of the coming winter.

The Imperial City dominated the vast island in the middle of the lake, and the city itself was dominated by the White Gold tower, which thrust up into the sky, so tall it made me dizzy, all white stone and elegance and mine's-bigger-than-yours. It wasn't exactly like I hadn't seen it before: it could be glimpsed even from the walls of Bravil on a clear day, but even so I'd never imagined a building could be so enormous. Seeing it this close made my throat ache, and I didn't know why. There was something cold and inhuman about it. A reminder that the lives of men, and even mer, were short, gone in a blink of an eye, while the White Gold Tower endured.

Armande watched me cautiously as I climbed off the wall. My side ached painfully, and my attempt to not let it show was failing miserably. After the long bone-rattling cart ride from Bravil even an act as simple as climbing off a low stone wall without grunting in pain was beyond me.

~o~O~o~

We'd spent a month and a half in Bravil in the end, marking time while we waited for my wound to heal up enough that I could travel. Calvus stuck around for a couple of weeks, and started the process of teaching me to read, but eventually he moved on. He had a distant cousin in Leyawiin who owned a bookshop and would be willing to put him up for a while in return for some scribing work and help in the shop. We said our goodbyes, while I blinked too rapidly and tried not to cry. Turned out the healers in the chapel hadn't been looking after me entirely out of divine charity, but because of a donation he'd made on my behalf. The look he'd turned on me when I'd tried to press what little I had saved on him had been terrible to behold.

"Absolutely not," he'd said, and that was the end of it. Or it would have been if I hadn't slipped the count's butterfly pin into his bags when he wasn't looking. For my lady love, Minelcar had said, and instead I gave it to Calvus and considered it a gift well given.

And then it was me and Armande. Just the two of us left, haunted by the empty spaces. We were too young and neither one of us knew how to grieve properly. There was no funeral for her, no gravestone at which to pay our respects, and no black pennies to bury in the freshly turned earth.

The gods only knew what Armande thought; he turned his grief inwards, hardened himself against the world. Sometimes I think he tried to pretend he'd never had a sister, that there'd never been such a person as Elise Christophe, who wasn't dead and gone forever because some cunt had snapped her neck.

~o~O~o~

We hitched a ride to Pell's Gate on a cart belonging to a farmer we'd met in the Lodge who'd told us he needed some lads to look tough and scare off any opportunistic bandits. Then he'd taken a second look at me, before turning to Armande. "I mean, I need _you_ to look tough and scare off any bandits." He winked at me. "No offense, son."

"None taken," I said.

"Jack's tougher than he looks," Armande said. "He'll lull them into a false sense of security and then his invisible ravens will swarm in and peck their ey– _Ow_!" I'd kicked him under the table.

"Invisible ravens?" The farmer squinted at me. "You some sort of mage? You look a bit young."

Armande slung his arm around my shoulders. "That's exactly what he is. I'm the brawn, he's the brains. He does that, uh... whassit?"

"Conjuration magic," I said.

The farmer nodded at me. "Well, go on then."

"Go on what?"

"Summon something. One of them ravens of yours."

"My ravens. Right. Um..." I glanced nervously at the orc. "Here? I mean in the Lodge? It's not really... the best place." Armande stared at me intently. Our opportunity to cadge a free ride more than halfway to the Imperial City, and all I had to do was summon a magical raven that was not only invisible but entirely imaginary. How hard could that be?

Well, as it turned out, not all that hard. That's the handy thing about invisible ravens.

I drew a breath, muttered something unintelligible under my breath, and waved my arms around a bit.

They were both staring at me.

I gulped down the rest of my small beer, and thwacked the mug down on the pitted surface of the wooden table. "Done."

"Done?" The farmer glanced round suspiciously. "I don't see no invisible ravens." Then he thought about what he said and laughed. "Fuck me, course I wouldn't. Where is it then?"

I lowered my voice. "Over there. Perched on the bar. Above the orc's head."

The farmer shot a cautious glance at the bar. "It's a right cheeky bugger. I bet that orc'd wring its neck."

"That's what happened to the last raven I summoned. Invisible feathers and invisible blood everywhere."

"By the gods," the farmer breathed. Then doubt flickered in his eyes. "You know, I reckons you boys might be having me on."

"Don't let it hear you, whatever you do," Armande whispered, his voice low and urgent enough that the farmer's eyes widened in alarm. "They get–"

I swore, tightening my hand around my empty tankard. "Too late!"

"Everybody down!" Armande yelled, and the farmer flinched, ducking his head on instinct. And while he was distracted, I hurled the tankard over his head with a quick flick of my wrist, close enough for it to skim his hair.

He swore, uncurled when no more attacks came. "Is it gone?"

We nodded.

He let out a shaky breath, sank back into his chair. "Thank fuck for that."

The orc's heavy tread made the floorboards creak. He stooped to pick up my tankard, then approached our table. Armande and looked anywhere but at him, and I tried not to think about how the entire shack seemed to shake with each footstep. The orc set my tankard on the table, glaring down at me. "I think you dropped this," he said.

"Oh, I... um... I didn't realise..."

He stabbed his finger across the room. "Over there." The farmer was staring at me, his forehead furrowed. Armande wasn't helping, pressing his mouth into his forearm to stifle his laughter.

"Thank you, good sir," I called after the orc's retreating back, solid as Imperial fortifications. "That was... that was very helpful."

Armande gave a helpless snort and swung away.

"You boys," the farmer said. "You boys are having me on, aren't you? There never was any raven. What'd you do, throw your tankard at me?"

"Yes, sir," I admitted. "Sorry." And I kicked Armande under the table again. "This stupid arsehole's idea of a joke."

The farmer shook his head ruefully. "Pair of fucking pisstakers, the both of you." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "But I reckons you could talk your way out of anything and you, my Redguard friend, do look hard as fucking nails. Go on, then. I'll take you both as far as Pell's Gate."

I blinked. "Really?"

"Aye, but you'd best hurry. Fetch what you need to fetch because I'm leaving soon as that cart's loaded up. Got any weapons?"

"I have a dagger," I said.

Armande shook his head.

"I've a club you can borrow," the farmer said. "Chances are we'll be fine. Main thing is to sit up there and look like someone they don't want to fuck with. You're managing that right now, Redguard. And as for you, my raven-summoning friend..." He gulped down the rest of his ale, and winked. "You can sit in the back with the cabbages."

"Where he belongs. He's practically a cabbage himself," Armande said, laughing. He flinched as I pretended to kick him again.

I left a distinctly unimpressed Armande to help the farmer load up his cart, which meant hauling boxes across the rope bridge while the farmer, who was far cannier than he looked, guarded the cart and made a dent in the bottles of spiced wine we'd bought from the Lodge to keep us warm on the way. No doubt we'd be rat-arsed by the time we reached Pell's Gate.

There's not much more I can say about us leaving Bravil. I wasn't sore to leave it; I'd about had my fill of that shithole of a town. I didn't even have anyone to say goodbye to, with the exception of the Khajiit fisherman, who pressed a packet of smoked eel into my hands and waved my coin away when I tried to pay him.

The little hovel I'd called home for the past four years of my life seemed dingier and filthier than I'd remembered. Tertius had bestirred himself and made himself scarce, and for this I was grateful since I had no particular desire to say farewell to him. It wasn't like he'd care. We were getting too old for the river-rat game anyway, and he wouldn't miss us. I gathered what few possessions we had, and then levered up the loose floorboard, scrabbling with my ragged fingernails to stop it from slipping back down again. Underneath lay the small purse of Septims that I'd managed to save up over the years.

Not much, but it should be enough to buy us a bed for a week or so. If the weather stayed good – which seemed unlikely; there was already a nip to the air, suggesting it was going to be a cold hard winter – we might be able to sleep outside. The stab of regret that I'd given the butterfly pin to Calvus didn't linger. I'd done the right thing: I owed him something, no matter what he'd said.

Outside, shivering in my thin clothes, I looked out over the town where I'd spent the last few years of my life. Up until that moment I hadn't thought that I could ever miss it. A forest of scaffolding had sprung up where the fire had ravaged the town, and there was still a faint charred smell in the air. But one thing about towns built of wood: they might be quick to burn but they're also quick to rebuild. Already the buildings were springing back up, sprouting like green shoots after a forest fire.

People recovered.

There was a lesson there, I thought, if only I could be arsed to take note of it.

There was a different air to the town now. In the market, people seemed happier, more at ease. And for the river-rats there were fewer beatings – I'm not saying they never happened, but Baral tended to come down hard on the perpetrators.

I'd done that. Even if I regretted it now because of everything that had happened. Even if the price we'd paid for it had turned out to be too high.

It didn't seem like much of a legacy to leave behind.

~o~O~o~

We reached Pell's Gate largely untroubled on the road by bandits, thanks no doubt to Armande's intimidating presence at the front of the cart next to the driver. I like to think my invisible ravens had a hand in it.

I was in back with what was left of the cabbages, stumbling over the words of a reading primer Calvus had given me, while Armande and Ned sat up front, talking about women and occasionally remembering to pass the wine back to me. In hindsight I might have been better walking. The vibration of the cartwheels grinding over the road got into my bones, made my teeth chatter together, and the constant low-level movement set the stab wound in my side to aching.

It was late afternoon by the time we reached Pell's Gate, which was too small to even be described as a village. It was little more than a handful of cottages thrown up around a central square, with chickens scratching at the earth and a goose eyeing me with malice.

The three of us were more than a little bit drunk and weary when Ned introduced us to his wife, Alyssa, who wiped her hands on her apron and greeted us. She was predisposed to be suspicious, I think, especially when Ned laid the blame for the purchase of the wine at Armande's door, but we had after all got her husband home safely and in one piece.

And it's hard to look like a threat when you're nervously edging away from an aggressive goose.

She scolded Armande and her husband when they laughed at me. "The poor boy," she said, after she'd chased off the goose. "You two great useless idiots laughing at him." And then to me, "Don't be scared of him, love. He's softer than he looks." I added geese to the list of animals that don't like me very much and thanked her (I'm much more fond of them now. We ate roast goose at my wedding: it was delicious).

She invited us in for supper, and since we'd eaten nothing but bread and cheese and pickled cabbage the whole journey, we accepted. Supper turned out to be a slice of pork pie, filled with chunks of ham and flavoured with sage, and the pastry was the fatty stuff that melts on your tongue. It was filled with jelly, and decorated with pickled redcurrants that burst between my teeth, flooding my mouth with a tart sweetness that contrasted beautifully with the fatty, well-seasoned pork. It was so good I shyly asked for a second slice.

"You like it?" she asked, picking up the knife.

"It's so good I think I've fallen in love with you," I said, and she beamed at me.

"Well, aren't you a charming young man."

Armande and Ned glared at me while while she cut me a slice that was at least half-again the size of the first.

We could have walked the rest of the way and reached the Imperial City before nightfall, but she insisted we stay the night. In truth, it didn't take much persuading. The prospect of trudging the next couple of hours along the Red Ring Road on foot did not appeal, so after some half-hearted demurral, we gratefully accepted the offer of the spare bed.

In any case, I was holding out for a third slice of the pie.

I didn't sleep well. Sharing a bed with Armande made me long for the Chapel of Mara again. He had an unfortunate tendency to roll over in his sleep, wrenching the covers off me, until I yanked them back.

Ned woke before the dawn light began to filter through the shutters, and it was the sound of him leaving the cottage that woke me. Armande lay sprawled on his front, dribbling into the bedding. One arm was stretched across my chest. I shoved him away, and burrowed my face deeper into the pillow, chasing sleep with no hope of ever catching up.

When I heard Alyssa up and about, I got up myself, pulling back the curtain that screened the spare bed off from the rest of the cottage. There seemed no reason to stay in bed, not with Armande's hungover groans and the smell of ale clinging to his skin. Alyssa was bustling about in the kitchen as quietly as she could.

"I didn't expect you to be up so early," she said.

"I'm an early riser."

She wiped her hands on her apron and pointed to the table. "There's some bread and a crock of butter if you want to help yourself, my love. Some fresh goat's milk too if you'd rather have that than ale."

Ale sounded good, but goat's milk sounded better. I sank down, and sliced myself a generous slice of bread, buttered it, then poured myself a glass of the thick milk. The milk and butter both had a musky goaty smell and aftertaste that wasn't unpleasant. While I ate, she bustled around and finally vanished outside.

I gulped down the last of my breakfast, and followed her outside. A brisk wind was blowing in off the Rumare, chasing away the stink of the village, the goaty musk and the cesspit. Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of the White Gold Tower, and I wondered what it was like to live in its shadow.

Alyssa was in the small cottage garden, a chicken wedged under her arm.

"Can I do anything to help?" I asked.

Startled, she blew her hair out of her eyes, then started to shake her head.

"Really," I insisted. "I can't just sit around watching you work. And I don't think my friend'll be up any time soon."

"Well, now..." She shifted the chicken in her grip, grasping its legs in one hand and the head in the other and snapped its neck in a sudden movement that made me flinch. She let the bird dangle by its legs. "How are you at plucking chickens?"

"Um... I'm sure if you show me how..."

She hooked the bird on a post and set a bucket underneath it, beckoned me closer. Showed me how to pluck the feathers, not to take too many at a time so as to avoid tearing the skin and how to rinse the feathers from my hands in the bucket of water. Then she let me loose, returning occasionally to check on me or to shoo away one of the curious goats nibbling at my clothes.

But all through I could feel her watching me. Every time I caught her watching she'd look away too quickly, blinking fast. She'd smile, but there was a fixed quality to it that made me think it was forced.

It made me think about something I'd felt the night before, after dinner was over and she'd taken our attempts to help clear up as a personal insult. Occasionally one or the other would say something and there had been an awkward pause, as if they were waiting for someone else to interject. They'd bicker good-naturedly like any other long-married couple, but there was a weary edge to it, as if they couldn't remember why they were bickering any more. As if they were putting on an act for someone who was no longer there.

Two pretty young women leaned on the drystone wall to watch me, whispering and giggling to each other until their mother shooed them off to do some actual work. The oldest glanced back at me over her shoulder with a secretive little smile that said far more than words ever could.

I watched the deliberate twitch of her hips as she walked away and thought that on the whole it wasn't a bad start to the day.

And when Armande finally dragged his hungover carcass out of bed he found me smiling.

"Morning," I said, cheerfully.

He stared at me for a few moments. "Jack," he said, "what the fuck are you doing?"

I held up my hands, showed him a handful of feathers. "I'm plucking a chicken."

"Right. Naturally. Changed your mind about joining the guild? Thought you'd become a farmer instead?"

"I might at that. It does seem like a peaceful life." Mind you the goose had waddled past a couple of times and fixed me with a baleful glare that made me think it was planning something.

"And a hard one." He pinched a grain of sleep from his eyes, stifled a yawn. "It might seem peaceful now, but you wait for the next string of failed harvests and see how you like it then." But the girls had contrived to cross the square again, glancing our way with a smile. Armande straightened up, and shot me a look. "Then again..."

"I wouldn't. Their mother looks altogether too familiar around a pitchfork."

He sighed. "You're probably right. Still..."

"You're up," Alyssa said to Armande as she returned from the well, hauling a bucket of water. Her voice was a little cooler. "I'll say the same thing I said to him, there's some bread and cheese and suchlike on the table if you want to help yourself."

"Thank you," he said, inclining his head. "You've both been gracious hosts."

She flustered a bit, blushing, and Armande grinned, thinking he'd charmed her. But when he'd eaten his fill, she somehow contrived to rope him into hauling up a pile of rocks from the ruined fort to rebuild the goat-pen and without ever actually asking him to do it. She was sharp, that farmer's wife, and it was a lesson in manipulation that I would have been well advised to pay attention to.

~o~O~o~

"Admit it," Armande said, when we finally made our excuses and departed, "you wanted to stay."

"Wouldn't have minded getting to know those farmers' daughters," I admitted, my gaze not on him but on the Imperial City across the wind-stirred waters. Was there anything else so vast in the world? "But I don't think I'm cut out to be a farmer."

"Nor me." He wriggled his arms, groaning. "Fuck me, those stones were heavy. And she didn't even try to get you to help. I swear she didn't like me much."

"'Cause you got her husband shit-faced. We're bloody lucky he didn't overturn that cart on the way back. And you kept us up all night with your snoring."

A mounted guard rode past, steel Legion armour glinting in the sunlight. A prickle of fear ran down my spine, but he rode past with nothing more than a watchful nod and a quiet "Citizens," that was far more respectful than we probably deserved.

"Think we'll make our fortunes?" Armande asked as we passed through Weye, the sprawling village that serviced the city. "Or get our throats slit and our bodies rolled into the lake?"

I didn't reply: I had no clue what the answer was.

He nudged me. "You know we've still got time to go back to Pell's Gate and get acquainted with those two farmer's daughters."

"If by that you mean get ourselves impaled on their mother's pitchfork, maybe later."

~o~O~o~

You never can tell what a city or town is going to be like from the outside. I'd looked at the high walls, the White-Gold Tower soaring upwards, and thought it big. I hadn't had a fucking clue, hadn't had a hope of preparing myself for how vast it was inside, and I only began to develop an inkling once we'd fallen into step with the traffic crossing over the bridge and saw the walls and the massive wooden gate rising up before us.

Part of me had been expecting it to be a larger, noisier version of Bravil. More shops. More wealth. More people.

It was nothing like Bravil.

Instead of slick stinking mud or hard cracked earth beneath our feet, the city was paved with smooth stone, free from animal and human shit alike. There was no livestock: no goats, no cows, no horses. Only cats (cat-cats, I mean, not Khajiit, although I suppose they could have been Alfiq and I would never have known) and the occasional dog. Everywhere I looked I saw evidence of wealth, opulent clothes of wool and silk and spotless wide thoroughfares, where people strolled and stopped to chat as if they had all the time in the world.

 _Everyone here is rich,_ I thought, dizzily, and from the way Armande was staring, I knew he felt the same thing.

We'd intended to make our way to the Waterfront District straight away, but it was the other end of the city, and the circular layout of the districts confused us. So we wandered more or less at random, neither of us wanting to admit how overwhelmed we were, how sharp the sudden pang we felt for our old lives, for our childhoods running the streets of Bravil, me and Armande and Brey and Elise back together again.

We didn't fit in. Our clothes might not be ragged any more, but they were sun-bleached, and less than clean, and almost everyone we passed smelled of perfume. Roses, lilacs, orange blossom: there was so much scent in the air I was drunk on it.

Even the market was clean. No open-faced butchers' shops here. No browning meat laid out in bloody slabs on rickety trestle tables to be examined by customers and flies alike. Here it was all neat and bloodless, and in the finest shops the meat lay on on a bed of ice with the shimmery gut-twisting feel of magic. And the gutters weren't filled with entrails, no buckets of blood left in the street to be kicked over...

It was easy to believe that this was a place where no one could be unhappy, where everyone was rich and no one ever went without.

But gradually, like peeling back the skin of an onion to find spots of mould and the heart of the onion brown and rotting, we began to see the truth. The beggars were still there, just hidden from view. The guards moved them on, not always gently, and the more we wandered, the more I began to recognise signs of want. The occasional unmistakeable sharp-sweet scent of skooma smoke clinging to someone's clothes. Children with pinched hungry faces, eyeing the passers by with hungry eyes.

A boy of about ten trailed idly after a noble, shooting a glance at the guard. Trying to judge whether he could make the snatch and escape without being caught. My fingers flexed; I could have snatched the noble's purse in my sleep. But the kid's skills were undeveloped: he didn't know what he was doing, and I could tell from the noble's posture that he knew the boy was there. No way he'd get away with it.

Armande hissed my name as I slipped a fish off a nearby stall and elbowed my way through the crowd towards them. A blade flashed in the palm of the kid's hand, and I knew he'd fucked it. As the noble spun around and clamped his hand around the boy's wrist, I barged into the two of them, and seized the boy's ear.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you little brat?" I demanded.

And I gave his ear a twist, not perhaps so hard as I should have. Certainly not as hard as he deserved. I'd have been ashamed to bugger up a pickpocketing so badly even at his tender age.

Besides the noble's purse hung like a shrivelled testicle: no way there was more than five Septims in there. Hardly fucking worth it.

The boy squealed. "Let me go!"

"What in Oblivion?" the noble demanded. "That boy was about to pick my pocket."

"A thousand apologies, My Lord, but you're mistaken," I said, and brandished the fish at him. He flinched away. "The little brat was trying to slip this in your pocket. His idea of a joke, I expe– _Ow_!" The little shit, unmindful of the fact I was trying to save him from being arrested, had kicked me sharply in the shin. I released him and he sprinted off down an alley.

The noble regarded me coldly. "He deserves a whipping."

"And I can assure you he'll get one, My Lord."

With a sniff, he stalked away.

"Could've stolen one of the salmon," Armande commented from behind me. "Wouldn't have minded one of them for dinner. How's your shin?"

"Fucking painful."

The little shit hadn't gone far. We found him sitting on some abandoned crates in the corner of the market, playing knucklebones with three other boys.

I leaned on a barrel, old enough now to indulge in nostalgia. "Gods, it takes you back, doesn't it?"

The boy lifted his head and gave me a hard glare that felt painfully familiar. His shirt hung loose on his skinny frame and his collarbone stood out a little too sharply beneath his grimy skin. Just another boy who never quite got enough to eat. Gods, how the three of them reminded me of me and Armande and Brey. So much it hurt.

Armande sighed when I started towards him. The boy shifted position warily, rising to a crouch. His hands curled into fists when I tried to hand him a couple of coins.

"Not interested," he said.

"You're not interested in money?"

"Not interested in _you_. Whatever it is you want from me. Take your fucking coins and shove them up your fucking arse. 'Cause you ain't going nowhere near mine."

 _You little bastard._

"You need to work on your technique," I said, holding out my hand, the coins lying on my upturned palm like breadcrumbs.

"Fuck you on about?" And despite his feigned disinterest, he shifted a little closer to me, his eyes on the coins.

"You made yourself too obvious. You stood out a mile, watching him like that. He saw you coming from half the market away. People aren't idiots. The trick is to watch them without watching them, and when you pick their pockets–" The slightest tug at my side. My hand snapped down, caught the boy's wrist. "–You don't do it like _that_."

"Let go!" And this time I evaded the vicious blow to my shin with ease. I released him and he stumbled backwards with a flash of real fear in his eyes, before he clamped down on it, and his face took on that hardened suspicious look again.

I reached into my pocket without thinking. Three coins became five became fifteen. I thought about making it twenty, but Armande would want to throttle me for this alone. We couldn't afford charity.

They were all poised to run. Except for him, trapped against the crate. "You want to get better at picking pockets," I said, "I can show you if you want to come find me." And then I couldn't stand the way he was looking at me any more so I turned my back and walked away.

"Fuck off, Granddad!" the kid yelled when I was safely across the street.

"'Granddad'? I'm only seventeen!" Indignant, I turned, saw them vanishing like rabbits into their burrows.

Armande was laughing at me. "How much did you give him?"

"Uhm..." I considered lying, but while I could successfully lie to a lot of people, Armande never had been one of them. "Fifteen Septims."

He stopped laughing. " _Jack_."

"I know. I just... I felt sorry for him."

"You felt sorry for him. That cunting little bastard who kicked you in the shin, told you to fuck off, called you 'Granddad' and tried to steal from you."

"' _Granddad_ '. How old does he think I am?"

He glanced at me thoughtfully. "It's the way you're moving, I reckon. Kind of stiffly. Your wound giving you trouble again?"

My hand went to my side. "It's not too bad."

"You're lying. Want to—"

" _No_."

"Jack..."

"We're not going to the chapel. We can't afford to waste money on any healing spells or potions or whatever, and it's not like they've been doing me any good anyway. So no."

"Maybe you should have worried more about wasting money before you decided to hand out money to street brats."

"Those street brats were us not so long ago."

"Speak for yourself. I was never that obnoxious."

I flung up my hands. "You're right. I'm sorry. If we see him again, I promise I'll beat the living snot out of him and steal all my money back. Happy?" There was silence for a long while. "It'll get better," I told him quietly. "it's only because of the carriage ride. That made it ache a bit. It's not nearly as bad as it was."

He turned his head, his eyes on mine, dark, serious, and filled with concern. "You lying to me, Jack?"

"Not this time."

In the Temple District we bought toasted rolls stuffing with roasted chicken from one of the busier stalls, and leaned against crates outside the bathhouse to devour them, hot grease running down our chins and between our fingers as we watched the clientele come and go. The air outside was warm and scented, the women beautiful, and all of it made me painfully aware of how filthy I was, how my hair was matted and tangled, and my skin encrusted with filth.

The prices were prohibitive, but there'd be cheaper places. City this big there had to be.

"We'll have to get some different clothes," I said, thoughtfully, sucking hot fat from between my fingers, my gaze picking out a shapely woman emerging, her dark hair unbound, artfully arranged in curls around her face. "We stand out a bloody mile dressed like this. It's like they can still smell Bravil on us."

"Probably because they can. Shouldn't be too hard to get hold of something."

The rolls had come with a free paper cone of fresh fried shards of fried chicken skin, seasoned and spiced with paprika. Once the rolls were done we crunched through the shards in a companionable silence, watching the world go by. Mainly the female portion of it.

~o~O~o~

It was hard to remember we hadn't come to sightsee. The stallholder directed us to a less than salubrious inn on the Waterfront. The ale was sour, and the aroma from the kitchen could not be in any way described as enticing, but the rooms were cheap and neither the landlord nor his harried daughter cared much about how we looked or how we were dressed. But you get what you pay for. We had to climb up a rickety ladder to get to our attic room, with its filthy double bed.

"Seven Septims for this." Armande glared at me as if it was my fault. "That arsehole must be a member of the Thieves' Guild. He's robbing us blind."

"It's no worse than what we've had to put up with in the past," I said.

"Yeah, but we're paying for this. Through the fucking nose."

"It's cheap. And it's only for a night or two. We'll find somewhere better. Maybe a boarding house. All we need is somewhere to dump our things."

"What things?"

~o~O~o~

Armande had been right when he'd called the Waterfront District a shithole. Odd then that my first thought should be that I'd come home.

Unlike the rest of the city, the Waterfront District stank, thanks to an overflowing cesspit at the edge of the shanty town that ran along the edge of Lake Rumare. Here the city's poorest residents made their homes, and those of them who could afford houses lived in squalid wooden shacks that reminded me painfully of Bravil. The ground was packed earth, and when it rained it would turn to mud thick and deep enough to suck the shoes right off your feet.

The smell of cooking food wound through the narrow alleys. Roasting onions, burning spices that hit the back of the throat and made my eyes sting. A mangy dog squatted to take a shit outside someone's door, and Armande and I stopped to snigger at the surprise someone would have waiting for them. Gods, we were arseholes.

There weren't many people to be seen, but it felt like we were being watched. Like our presence had been noted. A one-legged beggar slumped against the wall, his dirty stringy hair falling over his face. His sharp eyes looked like they missed nothing, even if the smell of stale alcohol clung to his clothes. And Armande groaned my name in warning as I approached.

"All I'm asking is a coin, kind sir," the beggar said, flicking his gaze over me from beneath his curtain of hair.

"You can have ten," I said, and his eyes glinted. "But I need to know a few things."

He sucked in air between his teeth, a sharp little kiss of his teeth. "Aye? Like what?"

"Like what you might know about..." Gods, I couldn't just come out and say it, could I? Why the hell hadn't Minelcar given me more of a clue how to find him? "...About thieves?"

He jabbed his thumb at the wall behind him. "You seen the offices of the East Empire Company?"

"Do they belong to the guild?"

"Mages' Guild?"

"The Thieves' Guild."

He laughed then, even as his eyes hardened. "Ain't no such thing. Every idiot knows that."

"I've been told there is. Ever hear of someone called Minelcar? He's an elf, an Altmer. I hear he lives in the city."

"Can't say as I've ever heard of him, kind sir."

 _You,_ I thought, _are a liar._ "Not even for twenty Septims?" Armande stifled a noise behind me.

"Well, now... funny now that you mention it," the beggar said, scratching the greying stubble on his chin. "'Cause thinking about it, that name is a bit familiar. Now where did I hear it?"

"Try to remember," I suggested.

"Maybe I imagined it. Let's say if this person existed, and I'm not saying he does, mind you... maybe he ain't the sort who appreciates unexpected visitors. Maybe, if he existed, and I was the one what put you onto him, maybe he wouldn't be likely to thank me for it. Maybe, it'd be more than my life's worth. Maybe, I might just end up with me throat slit one dark moonless night. 'Course, _thirty_ Septims might–"

"Fuck the fuck off, you thieving robbing bastard," Armande snapped, his hand slapping down on my shoulder. "Jack, let's go. There's another beggar over there looks like he knows something–"

"Hang about..." The beggar's eyes widened in alarm as Armande grabbed my arm and hauled me up.

"Thirty Septims? Thirty?!" Armande muttered to himself. "Dibella's sweet ripe tits, fuck that." And in my ear he said, "You look like you want it too much, you idiot. That arsehole saw you coming a mile off. Twenty Septims. Bugger me."

"Wait!" the beggar hurriedly reaching for his crutch, and shoving himself up against the wall. "Wait a minute now, lads. Let's not be hasty."

Armande's hand tightened on my arm. We glanced back. The beggar was trying to right himself, but couldn't get purchase against the ground. The crutch slipped out from under him, and he fell against the wall with a cry of pain. The slip was obviously faked – I wasn't an idiot – but his cry of pain was real enough, and I wasn't a heartless monster either. I wrenched free from Armande and helped the beggar stand. The callouses on his hand scratched roughly at my skin as he clutched gratefully at me.

"Thank you, kind sir. Blessings of Akatosh upon ye."

"You're welcome."

His eyes remained on me, a little softer now. A little more speculative. "The Thieves' Guild, you say?"

"That's right," Armande said. "Let us know where we can find then, and the ten Septims are yours."

"It was twenty before," the beggar complained.

"Yeah," Armande said, grinning. "But then you got greedy."

The beggar scowled at him.

"Let's say fifteen Septims," I said. Armande rolled his eyes, muttered something under his breath that I shall not repeat here.

"Fifteen," the beggar repeated. "Give us the coin first."

I fished the coins from my pocket, and counted them out into the beggar's outstretched hand. He tucked them away inside his shirt. I averted my gaze politely, keeping my attention on my pocket in case he decided to get greedy again. There was an elegance about the way he moved his hands that made he think he wasn't entirely unaffiliated with the world of pickpocketing and light fingers.

"So you want to know where to look for the Thieves' Guild?" he said when the coins were safely hidden.

I nodded. He glanced around: left, right, and even a quick darting look upwards, then he beckoned me closer. I squatted, Armande's hand resting on my shoulders.

"Look for them," the beggar said, lowering his voice as if he had something of great import to tell us, " _in the shadows._ "

 _Fuck. Me._

Armande's hand tightened on my shoulder. "You what?"

The beggar winked.

Armande was silent for a moment. I risked a glance up at him, saw his face working. "Armande..."

He held up a finger. Sucked his upper lip in. Various emotions warred in his face, before his expression settled into an emotionless mask. His voice was calm when he spoke, eerily so. "You fucking _what_?"

The beggar shrugged. "Best place to look, the shadows. They want you to find 'em, you'll find 'em."

And that, I knew, was all we were going to get. Gods help me, Armande was going to kill me. "If you see Minelcar..."

"Assuming he exists," the beggar corrected.

"Assuming he exists. If you do happen to see him, let him know someone called Jackdaw is looking for me. I'm–"

"From Bravil," the beggar said.

"How did you–"

"Kid." The beggar gave me a weary look. "It's in your voice. It's in the stink that still clings to you. I was with the Legion. Went all over Tamriel before this put me out of action." He slapped his stump. "Think I can't recognise the stink of Bravil when I recognise it? Let's say he does happen to exist, and I do happen to run into him, and I'd say there's a fairly high likelihood of that happening..."

"Assuming he exists," I said.

"Now you're getting it, kid. Well, assuming he exists, I'll tell him Jackdaw from Bravil and his ill-tempered Redguard friend are in town looking for him."

"Thank you," I said, while Armande muttered, "Ill-tempered my cunting backside," under his breath.

"'Course," the beggar said, grinning a black-toothed smile. "If he _does_ exist, there's not a chance in Oblivion he don't already know you're here."

~o~O~o~

Days passed. We waited. Fuck all happened.

The food in the inn proved every bit as unappetising as it smelled, and the ale seemed to get worse with every passing day. While Armande got to know the Waterfront district a little more intimately, which was to say he spent a lot of time chatting with sailors and flirting with whores, I explored the rest of the Imperial City, casing out likely houses and marks. Getting familiar with the streets and the quiet little back alleys. Especially on market days when it seemed like everybody and their mothers and their grandmothers and their grandmothers' second cousins flooded into the city, when the streets of the market district were crammed, and the taverns spilled patrons onto the street.

My hands itched, but I stifled my covetous nature and kept a low profile. Watched for the familiar faces, the ones as watchful and greedy and avaricious as mine. Once I ran into our not-so-helpful friend the beggar, who avoided me nervously until I bought him a cup of spiced ale from a stall and made it clear that I wasn't going to punch his lights out. (Although frankly he was lucky Armande wasn't with me.)

And I kept holding back, since I wasn't certain what the guild's policy was on non-members stealing on their patch. Even though our supply of Septims was dwindling, and every day my hands got itchier, because I was starting to get sick of that cramped little attic room and the even more cramped bed that I had to share, not only with Armande, but with a whole legion of fleas and bedbugs which held nightly pitched battles over the contested territory of my body.

~o~O~o~

I woke from an extraordinarily pleasant dream about the two farmers' daughters I'd seen in Pell's Gate to find myself in danger of being shoved out of bed and onto the floor by a snoring Armande. I glared at him, fought for my last bit of space, and finally conceded defeat.

It was a humid night. Thunderheads had formed in the skies, massive billowing clouds, lit from behind by Segunda's eerie light. Sweat beaded on my skin, and I longed to go for a swim in the lake beneath the starlight.

The unseasonable heat hadn't just got to me. A group of sailors had spilled out of a tavern, forming a circle around a fight: an Argonian was giving the Nord on the ground a good kicking, only for the Nord to seize his foot and jerk him off balance. The Argonian hit the ground and the Nord straddled him, gave three quick jabs of his fist, while the watching crowd cheered. It all seemed good natured enough, but the guards were running along the waterfront to break it up.

I slipped away, unseen.

Armande had found a job working for an Altmer who'd made the questionable purchase of a ramshackle old ship, which he'd anchored on the south side of the Waterfront with the express intention of turning it into an inn. This we'd heard from our landlord who had looked disgruntled at the very thought. "Stupid fucking idea," he'd said, slamming down Armande's tankard of ale so hard the ale sloshed over the side, staining the pitted wood of the bar. "But that's elves for you. More money than sense. The jaundiced bastard won't last five minutes round here."

And while Armande fell in with the Altmer and scored himself a job (actually, he'd got us both a job, but the gentle rocking of the boat had made me queasy. The Altmer had taken one look at the pallor of my face and taken the wise precaution of firing me on the spot), I'd been getting to know the city. Asking casually where the wealthy areas were, drinking in all the inns I could find and making friends with the innkeepers (particularly the attractive female ones). I wasn't welcome everywhere, scruffy and disreputable-looking as I was, but I still learned a lot.

During my explorations, a mark with a similar build to Armande had walked into me in the market and snapped at me as if it had been my fault. Irritated, I'd eyed his purse, but followed him home instead, made a quiet little mental note of where he lived. And it was to this house that I now returned, sick of my itching palms and eager for the storm to break.

I make no apologies for what I am. I'm a thief, and as much as I can claim I have eschewed my old ways, I will always be a thief. You never forget your training, and this life takes a hold of you. You see everything through the eyes of thievery; belonging to the guild of shadows and silence is like donning a mask that can never be removed – and, fuck me, how I hate that analogy.

I wish to all the gods that I could stop. It would have broken Millona's heart to know that when I greeted a fellow noble, dined in his house, kissed his wife on the cheek, played with their children, and laughed at their jokes, all the time – _all the time_ – my mind was running on the best, most efficient way to rob them blind.

Inside it was quiet, the sort of peace that settles on a house where everyone is sleeping. I gave it a quick once over to learn the layout, then moved softly and swiftly to the bedrooms, ready at any moment to flee.

I didn't take much. Just a couple of sets of clothes. Nothing fancy, slightly worn, but decent quality and far less conspicuous than our current rags.

Outside I closed the door behind me. The thunderheads had finally broken. The rain gushed in torrents along the guttering, soaking me to the skin in moments. I wedged the bundle of clothes beneath my arm, and tilted my head, the rain cooling my skin as I felt the prickle of something wrong. Something about the rain, a patch of darkness near the wall of an alley where the rain didn't seen to be falling quite right–

My arm tightened around the bundle of clothes. A guard was coming my way, a hazy corona around the guttering light of his torch. The rain ran down his helm, which he kept lowered to keep the water out of his eyes. I drew back out of the quavering circle of light cast by his torch, and shot a quick cautious glance toward the patch of shadows where the falling rain seemed unnaturally shivery. Pain pulsed at my eyeballs, and I knew.

Someone was watching me. Had been since the gods knew when. They'd been waiting for me to leave the house I was burgling. Might even have been following me since I'd left the Waterfront.

The guard trudged past. I stepped silently from the doorway, and followed him, padding silently in his footsteps, with the back of my neck itching. Had I been asking too many questions? Treading on too many toes?

I drew level with the patch of shadows. Beneath the pattering of the raindrops, I could hear another sound at the edge of my hearing – someone breathing.

A clumsy scuffle with my feet, I sucked in a sharp breath as if the guard had heard – he was well ahead of me now and hadn't heard a thing – but I made to dart out of his eyeline. Only I didn't.

Instead I dropped the bundle of clothes, and threw myself at that patch of shadow. There was an instant when I was convinced I was going to collide with nothing but empty space, that I'd smash into the wall and spent the rest of the night torn between feeling like a idiot and feeling relieved that no one had been around to witness me being a idiot.

Except there was someone there.

The darkness had been made flesh. A sharp intake of breath as I collided with the figure. I'd taken them by surprise, but their reactions were almost as quick as mine. Still not quick enough. In seconds, I wrapped my arm around their throat, slammed their face against the wall. A sickening lurch of my stomach at the sound of a blade scraping in its scabbard. I grabbed their wrist and twisted.

"Yeah," I whispered. "I wouldn't." The figure hissed and went still, let go of the blade.

And then we were at a bit of an impasse.

 _Nice one, Jack,_ I thought. _Now what?_ I was still trying to figure out what the hell to do when the figure spoke.

"I could scream." It was a woman's voice, entirely unafraid despite my arm around her throat.

A woman. And the thought going through my head was something along the lines of, _Oh, fucking shitting hell._ The gods only knew what the guards here did to men they thought were rapists, but I was guessing it wouldn't be anything I'd particularly enjoy.

My grip didn't slacken around her throat though. Chivalry's all well and good until the day it gets you killed.

"Yeah, but you won't," I said, although I had no clue whether or not this was true. If she was going to scream she would have done it already. I drew her sword myself, the whisper-soft sound of it emerging from the scabbard like the rustling of silk. My throat clutching, hunger rising inside me. The blade caught what little light there was like a cat's eye, gleaming wetly red in the darkness, as if already slick with blood. And gods, how desperately I wanted it.

 _Focus, Jack. Focus._

I drew the rest of the way, and pressed the point to her side. "Why the fuck were you spying on me?"

"Why the fuck do you think, Jackdaw of Bravil?" Her voice was cultured, soft and melodious and filled with amusement. The you-little-cunt-I'm-going-to-kill-you-for-this-and-it's-going-to-be-hilarious sort of amusement. She handled the swearword uncertainly, like a weapon she didn't quite know how to use, but I was starting to get an idea of who she might be.

"You're from the guild?"

"Well," she said, and even with my arm around her throat and a blade in her ribs, she still managed to make her voice drip with sarcasm. "I can see why Minelcar speaks so highly of you."

"But you're not convinced?"

"From what I hear you managed to burn down half of Bravil. I think you could be a liability."

"Half the town is an exaggeration. It was only a few houses." I paused. "Mind you, Bravil's a small town."

She laughed. "Damn me, but you're a cocky bastard. And not entirely without talent, I'll give you that. Are you going to let me go? It would be a shame to have to kill you, and don't think for a moment that I won't kill you if I deem it necessary or that you're the one with the upper hand here."

I hesitated, then released her, stepping back quickly. I kept the sword. My eyes were growing used to the tricks of the falling rain, the pattern it wove. The spaces in-between the raindrops. It made my eyes want to pop their skins like overripe tomatoes, but I could almost see her, a shadow darker than the surrounding shadows where the rain did not fall. And from that patch of shadows, the woman spoke.

"And my sword? The guild frowns on stealing from fellow thieves."

"I'm not part of the guild yet, am I? I'm thinking I might keep it. I could do with a sword. What is it, ebony?"

"Daedric."

I whistled. "Nice."

She didn't answer, and I knew why. The patch of darkness was shifting, trying to circle around behind me. I kept my gaze on the blade, took a few experimental swings, following the movement in the corner of my eye. And when she rushed me I was ready for her. I twisted, grabbed and slammed her back against the wall, using my body weight to pin her there, the point of the sword against where I judged her throat to be. A sharp little cry of pain and I eased the pressure off, resisting the urge to apologise.

"Damn," she said. "You are good. How did you know?"

"The rain."

"Fucking rain." And again, the slightest tremor in her voice. She wasn't used to swearing. This hard-as-nails persona she wore was nothing but a mask. "Odd though, for most people the rain makes it harder to spot me."

"Then most people aren't paying attent–" I broke off. Something sharp pressed against my abdomen. The point of a dagger, eager to make acquaintance with my entrails. In the darkness I had a feeling she was smiling. A savage grin, not altogether unlike Elise's.

"Yeah, well I'll agree with you there, Jackdaw," she said.

 _Oh bloody buggering shitting hell._ "I could cut your throat."

"I know," she said. "But you won't."

"Probably not. But I could scream."

A long moment of startled silence stretched out and then she burst out laughing. The blade at my belly eased off. I hesitated, then stepped away, bracing myself for her dagger to open up my entrails or slash across my throat. When it didn't happen, I held out her sword, hilt first, my thoughts screaming at me not to let it go, never to let it go, how badly, how desperately I needed this sword and all the things I could do with it.

Magic swords. Personally I've never been a fan. It's far too easy to grow reliant on the magic, the damage wielded by frost or fire, while your more practical skills slip, grow rusty. And then, usually when you least expect it, and are in the most need, the magic will be exhausted and you will be left with nothing but your rusty fighting skills and a flaccid sword you haven't been sharpening enough. Better to rely on what you know you've got – a sharp unenchanted blade that fits well in your hand and that you know how to use. Something you can rely on.

And still, when she tried to take it from me, my fingers clenched, unwilling to let go. She had to gently prise them open, her hand over mine, her fingers warm and sweaty. So I wasn't the only one who'd been faking nonchalance. Good to know.

"Do you always spy on potential guild members?" I asked.

She stepped in so close, I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. The scent of lilacs clung to her, like flowers damp from the rain.

"Only the interesting ones," she said, and then, "Sakeepa's bath house. Noon tomorrow. It's in–"

"It's a hole in the wall in the market district." _Looks rough as a dog's arsehole_. "I know the place."

"Well, you have been getting to know our fair city. Although from your rather pungent aroma, I take it you haven't been taking advantage of the facilities. Take your Redguard friend with you, if you wish. Ask for Berry to give you the works, and give Sakeepa this." She pressed something into my hand, a coin about the same size as a Septim, but lighter.

"Will I see you there?"

"No. But you might see me again in the future. If you prove yourself a worthy member of the guild."

"What's your name?"

She stopped. When she spoke again, the faint amusement in her voice had gone, and there was nothing but sadness in her tone. As if for a moment, whatever mask she wore had dropped.

"It doesn't matter what my name is," she said. "I'm no one."

And then she was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. All comments are hugely appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Ten**

" _Samuel was a bit wild as a young man. The City will do that to you. Bad company, bad influences_."

– Rochelle Bantien

The coin caught the light dully as it spun upwards, then plunged back down. I snatched it from the air.

"I'm no one," Armande repeated. "That's what she said?"

"That's what she said." We'd been watching the entrance of Sakeepa's Bath House for at least an hour, watching the patrons sidle inside, and sidle out again after a while, looking a bit cleaner and a lot guiltier. "I reckon it's a trick," he said dubiously. "They'll rob and murder us. Who's this Berry?"

"Fuck knows."

"What in Oblivion were you thinking, Jack? All your bollocks about doing nothing to piss off the guild, and then you slam some bint into the wall and put a sword to her throat?"

I gave a sharp frustrated sigh. "Fair's fair, it was her sword. And I don't like being spied on. "

"Funny, 'cause you're happy enough when you're the one doing the spying. Why didn't you just pretend you hadn't seen her? Gone about your business?"

"Because..." I hesitated. Sent the coin travelling across the back of my knuckles. "Because I had seen her. And it would've felt like lying."

"You're happy enough to lie when you want as well. But don't lie to _me_. Admit it, you wanted to show off."

A particularly shifty-looking Dunmer was edging towards the bath house. "I reckon," I said, slowly, "I reckon that's a brothel."

"Talos wept." Armande rolled his eyes skywards. "Were you born stupid or did your mother drop you on your head as a child?"

"What?"

"Of course it's a fucking brothel, you idiot. _All_ the bathhouses are. A swim, a steam, and a cocksucking on the side for them that pays extra. Shitting hell, it's no wonder you're a virgin."

"Not all of them. Not the one in the Temple District..."

"You kidding? That's the worst of the lot."

I flicked the coin, rippled it over my knuckles, and for an instant made it disappear. "You're full of shit."

Armande snorted. "Am I though?"

"You've been spending too much time talking with sailors and whores."

"Better'n standing around talking with you." And his voice slipped into an impression of mine, taking on an accent that only marginally resembled my Nibenean twang. "'I reckons... that's a brothel.'"

"Fuck you. I don't sound anything like that. You make me sound like a bloody yokel."

"Jack, you _are_ a yokel."

"Am I fuck. If I'm a yokel, so are you."

"Nah." As I threw the coin up again he snatched it from the air. "It don't matter where I was born or how I speak. To you lot, I'll always be a Redguard. What the hell is this anyway?"

"She told me to give it to Sakeepa." I grabbed it back. It was the size of a Septim, but cast from lead instead of gold, and the image on the coin was different. Instead of Tiber Septim's bust on one side and the Seal of Akatosh on the other, one side bore the image of a cowled man, and the other a crouching fox. "I think it might be a mark of the guild. Tells 'em we're legit."

"Right. And you're absolutely sure she didn't give you the kill-these-idiots coin by accident?"

"Pretty sure."

He caught hold of my arm. " _How_ sure, Jack?"

"Say, seventy percent?"

He closed his eyes. "Talos have mercy. We're dead men."

"Armande..." I closed my fist around the coin. "She was fucking invisible, okay? I only saw her because the rain wasn't falling like it was meant to. She had an enchanted sword that made my blood feel like it was on fire..."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I got lucky. I reckon if the guild wanted us dead we'd be dead. You've seen the lock on the inn where we're staying, right? A drunken goblin could crack it with a pick wedged in his arsecrack. Stay out here if you want to, but I'm going in."

"Fucking hell." He rubbed his eyes. "Well, come on then, let's go get murdered."

Inside, the bath house was warm and humid, the air layered with varying floral aromas, and underneath the sinus-clearing medicinal scent of eucalyptus oil. The entrance way was draped with shimmering curtains of iridescent silk, but up close we could see they were grubby and past their best. The floor tiles were cracked slate, and the wall an abstract mosaic: shattered ceramic shards and fragments of gleaming glass in every colour. Past the gauzy curtains steps wound downwards, and we followed them. An Argonian was waiting in the foyer at the bottom of the steps.

"Welcome, welcome," he said, his watchful eyes flitting between us. My hand clutched the coin, squeezed it tight. Armande nudged me, and I cleared my throat.

"We... ah, we're here to see Berry," I said. "We want the works."

The Argonian scratched at his scaled cheek. "You're a little young, aren't you?"

And while I might otherwise have wondered exactly what it was I was too young for with gleeful excitement the question nettled me. "I'm old enough."

"If you say so. Thirty Septims for the both of you."

Trying not to wince, I counted out the gold and handed it over. And still the Argonian seemed to be waiting. Armande nudged me, and I slipped the lead coin into the Argonian's hand. He ducked his head, his slit-pupiled eyes closing. "A thousand thanks, young sir. _Most_ generous."

The nearby curtains shivered and another Argonian appeared. She was of middling-age, stocky bodied and dressed in loose coils of clinging translucent orange silk. Sakeepa placed his webbed hand on her shoulder, murmured something to her in a harsh grating tongue. Her spines prickled as she studied us, listening to whatever he said.

"Swims-Under-Moonlight will assist you," he said, gesturing for us to follow her. "Please."

"But will..."

"Please," Sakeepa repeated, rather more insistently.

"If you'd like to follow me," Swims-Under-Moonlight said. I glanced at Armande, who shrugged as she turned away.

"Guess we follow her. Godsdamn it, Jack, what have you got us into now?"

We followed her, past archways draped with more shimmering curtains, rooms that smelled of spices and mint, and one room that stank of something I could not identify, but which hit the back of my sinuses like mustard.

In a changing room she shoved towels into our arms. "Undress," she ordered. "Leave your clothes on a shelf. They will of course be returned to you." A faint disapproving sniff. "Assuming you still want them."

"But... what about Berry?"

She turned on her heel and vanished.

"Helpful, thanks." I turned back to Armande. "When she said 'undress' you think she meant... all the way."

"You've got to admit it's smart. No clothes, no armour, no weapons. Nowhere to conceal a weapon. But you can bet _they'll_ have weapons stashed close to hand."

"Fuck. You think we should get the hell out?"

"I think we've come this far and I doubt we'll get a refund. I'm damned if those thirty Septims are going to go to waste." He flashed a wicked grin. "And I'd like to know what the hell your mysterious friend in the shadows meant by 'the works'."

"I know, but..."

"Jack, we're _here_. What's the worse that could happen?"

"We catch the Breton disease?"

He grabbed a towel and flung it at me, laughing. "Get your clothes off, idiot."

And so, with our clothes and possessions stowed in one of the casks, and a key carefully hooked around my neck along with my locket (I was damned if I was leaving that behind to be stolen), and the unnecessarily skimpy towels wrapped around our waists, we emerged into a warm tiled room where Swims-Under-Moonlight and another Argonian female were waiting for us..

I should have known it would be a bad sign when they separated us. I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around Armande like a clingy toddler that couldn't bear to be separated from his mother.

In a private room where the air was dry and hot, Swims-Under-Moonlight ordered me to lie down on a tiled slab. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I tightened the towel around my waist. "I mean, do I have to? I'm not actually here to... you know, get clean or anything. I'm just..."

"Lie down on the slab."

"But–"

Her spines prickled. Her expression didn't change. I lay down on the slab, flinched when she yanked the towel away with a weary, "On your front."

I rolled onto my belly, eyeing her nervously as she tipped what seemed like half a bottle of orange-scented oil over her hands. "What's that for?"

She turned her head towards me, considering the question. "Lubrication."

"Wait, what?" I wriggled backwards, my voice taking on a high edge of panic. "What do I need lubricating for?"

"Keep still."

"But–" I tried to push myself up and she slapped me back down.

"If you keep wriggling it'll hurt more."

" _What'll_ hurt more?!"

She sighed. "I'm just messing with you, boy. First time in a bath house?"

"Yes." I swallowed. "If you're just messing, does that mean I can go?"

"No. Lie still. And try to shut up."

"But... No, wait, really, I'm _fine_ , you don't need to–" I yelped at the rough scratch of her claws on my skin, clamped my jaw tight as she gave a low growl in the back of her throat.

 _Lie still. Shut up._ I could do that. Probably.

Her hands slid up my spine and over my shoulderblades, finding and seeking out the knotted muscles. Her hands were much smoother and softer than I had expected, even if the pressure was almost painful at times. She gave a disgusted hiss at the state of my hair, her nails scratching lightly at my scalp as she tugged at the knots.

She drew back. "Roll over."

"What?"

"Are you deaf? Roll over."

I squinted down at the table. "I'd... I'd rather not."

She gave an exasperated sigh, muttered something about idiot Imperial boys, then slapped the top of my thigh underneath my right buttock. "Roll. Over."

 _Gods help me._ I obeyed, slippery against the tiles and feeling more vulnerable and helpless than I'd ever felt in my life. Distant laughter threaded through the building, and it was hard not to imagine that laughter was aimed purely at me. As she poured more of the oil onto her claw-tipped hands, I wriggled up, my purchase on the stone slab less than secure now I was covered in oil. "There's really no need–"

"Lie down."

Her hand gripped my shoulder, pressing me down. I subsided, stared up at the ceiling, my cheeks burning. What in Oblivion had happened to those easy carefree days, when I'd been happy to be naked in front of everyone and their mother? Back when I could trust my genitals not to stand painfully to attention at a flash of cleavage or the switch of a woman's backside beneath clinging silks.

And, as it turned out, the oily ministrations of a middle-aged Argonian bathhouse attendant.

Her hands were swift and professional, working out the knots and aches in my muscles. It would have been pleasant if I hadn't been staring hard at the ceiling and focusing on every awful thing about Bravil I could remember: the stench of the Larsius, watching a butcher hack the carcass of a cow apart. Anything to stop my cock from stirring with cheerful interest. I didn't quite succeed, but if she gave a damn, she didn't show it.

She soaked my hair with the same oil, using her fingers to work it through the knots and tangles and down into the scalp. My body was already drenched in sweat beneath the layer of oil, and stinging in a few places where I had abrasions.

And finally she was done. She jerked her head, indicating that I should move through the arch into the other room. I slid off the slab, put the slippers on, and wrapped the towel back around my waist. Armande was already waiting for me, as slippery as I was but looking considerably less petrified.

"You know, this isn't so bad," he said. "I could get used to this. Nothing else, at least we smell better." He glanced at me. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." I closed my eyes. "Armande, I think this was a really, really bad id–"

The door opened. I stopped halfway through my sentence, my jaw hanging open. And both of us, naked beneath our towels and about as lost as it was possible for two street-boys from a rough poverty-stricken town could possibly be, were struck dumb at the sight of the stunning woman who'd entered.

She was an Imperial, golden hair loose over her bared shoulders. Her dress was a seamless length of silk, gathered into folds and wrapped loosely over her body, with naught but a circlet of gold around her waist to keep it all together.

"Follow me," she said, smiling.

Armande's words – _they're all brothels_ – flashed through my thoughts, and any rational thought fled. I followed her, trying to let my gaze rest anywhere but on the sway of her hips, the curve of her backside, the faintest glimpse of inner thigh. If they'd wanted to mesmerise us into mindless obedience, it was the perfect way to go about it. It was hypnotic watching the curves of her body, the briefest flash of a dark-tipped nipple as she turned a corner–

As you may have guessed I wasn't entirely successful in keeping my gaze elsewhere.

She led us through along a corridor smelling of medicinal herbs, past a series of similar looking doorways with steam seeping out from underneath, and to one particular doorway that looked very much like all the others. She opened it, and steam surged out into the corridor, the air filled with the various fragrant oils that spiced the steam. She ushered us inside, and we were enveloped in darkness and steam so dense it was hard to breath.

"Are you Berry?" Armande asked as we turned back towards her. I might have laughed at the hopeful longing in his voice if I hadn't been feeling the same way.

She grinned at us. "Not exactly," she said, and slammed the door shut, trapping us in darkness a allayed only by a weak golden light filtering through the translucent crystalline ceiling. The steam room was dominated by a central column in the room, its sides curved to form benches. And around the perimeter of the room, there were more benches, long enough to allow someone to recline.

"So... no chance of a cocksucking then?" Armande said mournfully.

"I'd say," came a man's voice behind us, "you haven't got a chance in Oblivion."

~o~O~o~

He was a Breton. It was hard to tell his age in the shifting steam, but he had the solid build of a fully grown man, and a watchful wariness in his posture. He was naked, leaning back on the bench on the triangular pillar, watching us. Nothing angry or aggressive about him, but he didn't look particularly friendly either. The steam hissed into the room, building up until the air felt scorching, so hot I thought I'd never be able to take another breath.

"I'm Sam Bantien," he said, his voice calm. "I hear you want to join the Thieves' Guild."

"Yes, sir. I'm–"

"Take a seat first, kid. This isn't the sort of conversation you want to have staring at someone's cock and balls."

"Maybe a bath house ain't the best place for it then," I said. Armande's elbow thumped into my ribs.

Sam Bantien bared his teeth at me. "It's the perfect place. Quiet, secluded, and discretion is guaranteed. Anyone here recognises you they won't be in too much of a hurry to turn you in." His gaze flicked over first me and then Armande as we sat down, a slow appraisal with nothing sexual about it. It came to rest on the puckered scar in my side. "That's a nasty scar."

My hand pressed over it. Trying to hide it. "I was stabbed."

"Poison on the blade?"

"Yes."

He curled his lips. "Scum. What happened to 'em?"

"He's dead."

Samuel Bantien leaned forward, his gaze intent on me. "You the one that killed him?"

I hesitated, glanced at Armande. "Yes. But it was self-defence."

He gave a slow nod. "We don't like killers in the guild, but self-defence is... acceptable. On a job, though, on a job, it means something's gone wrong. Very badly wrong. It means you fucked up somewhere along the line. It means you didn't plan enough or you bungled something up. Know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, sir."

His eyebrows raised. "You don't say much, do you? Funny that, I'd heard you were a talker, Jackdaw of Bravil. That's a damned stupid name."

"People mostly call me Jack."

"And your real name?" Sam Bantien asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Really don't know, or are you just being cagey? I don't care either way, understand. I'm just curious. Comes in handy in my line of work, but it can be dangerous too. 'I wonder what's in that fellow's pocket', 'I wonder what they're hiding in this locked chest?' That sort of thing."

"I really don't know. If my mother gave a name, no one bothered to tell me what it was."

He grunted, switched his attention to Armande. "And you? Were you lucky enough to get a name from your mother, Redguard?"

"I was," he said quietly. "It's Armande Christophe. Only thing she gave me that I haven't lost."

I darted a glance at Armande, looked quickly away.

Sam studied me for a moment, his face impassive. "I'm what we in the guild call a Doyen," he said finally. "I'll be your main point of contact, help deal with any bounties you may have on your head, hand out any jobs I might happen to have knocking about which need someone with quick wits or a light set of fingers, that sort of thing."

Armande glanced around. "And we come here? Every time?"

"Unless there's something urgent you need me to deal with, yes. I'm here regularly, but once you're in the guild you'll be given a way to get in touch with me if you need to in an emergency. Sakeepa used to be in the guild himself until he retired and set this place up, so it's friendly to thieves. And everyone in this city and their mother visits one bath house or another so your coming here won't look too strange. Although..." He flashed his teeth. "This one does have a bit of a reputation and for good reason."

"Wait... You said 'once we're in the guild'?" I frowned. "You mean we're not members yet?"

"Kid, when is anything ever that easy? We don't know you. We don't know anything about you."

"You know I'm good," I retorted.

"And modest," Armande said, nudging me. "You forgot modest."

"Minelcar's had a lot to say about you, but the scales are still in the balance,"Sam said.

"And the woman," I said. "What did she say?"

He frowned. "What woman?"

"The woman I ran into last night. She practically as good as guaranteed me a spot in the guild."

The expression on his face was one of puzzlement. I would have sworn blind he genuinely didn't know what I was talking about. "Kid, there is no woman who could accept you into the guild. Aside from the Guildmaster himself, only a Doyen like me can do that, and right now all the Doyens in the guild are male. I have no idea who you're talking about."

"But you have to. You were expecting me. She was the one who gave me the coin."

"Jack," Armande murmured, leaning close. "Let it go."

I subsided, with a lingering feeling that something was off. My skin itched with the prickling sensation of pores opening up.

"No one joins the guild until we see what they can do and how they work," Sam said. "So there's a little task we need you to complete first. We need you to obtain a letter. A potential... supporter of the guild had a disagreement with a bard."

"What sort of disagreement?" I asked.

"He wanted to go on fucking her. She disagreed. Turns out her beloved husband wouldn't too thrilled about the mother of his children screwing the lute-strummer. Although I hear he is _very_ good at strumming lutes."

Armande coughed. I rolled my eyes up to the water droplets forming on the dripping ceiling. "Right."

"Well, as it turns out the bard wasn't too thrilled about this state of affairs either. Not only has he lost access to a very fine cunt indeed, he's found himself in the shithouse without a patron, and the lady in question wasn't as discreet as she could have been. He's been spreading gossip about her to everyone he meets and dropping hints about a letter that proves her indiscretions in lurid and salacious detail. He's threatening to take the letter to her husband. We want that letter."

"Shouldn't be too hard," I said dubiously.

"And we need it stolen without the bard realising it's been stolen."

"Okay. Possibly slightly harder." I bit my lip, thinking.

Armande frowned. "Why not just beat the fucker up and make him give it us?"

"Because even without proof his talk has already sown seeds of doubt in her husband's mind and she loves him dearly."

 _Although,_ I thought, _not quite dearly enough to refrain from fucking the bard._

"She wants the bard humiliated. We have a forged letter we want you to substitute for the real thing. That way, when he does take the letter to her husband – and he will: he's a spiteful little shitbag by all accounts – they'll realise it's a forgery and assume he's a liar, undermining his entire story and turning him into a laughing stock. Think you two can manage that?"

"Where's the forged letter?" I asked.

"You'll find it in your casket when you get your clothes back. Look after it, for Mara's sake. It took a lot of work to get it just right. The bard's name is Marus Killein. You'll find him in the King and Queen Tavern in the Elven Gardens district most nights. Any questions?"

"Just one," I said. "Who's the Guildmaster?"

"You don't need to worry about him yet. Chances are you'll never even meet him. Any _relevant_ questions?"

I glanced at Armande, shook my head.

"All right, good." Sam stood up. "A few things before I go. Firstly, we're thieves. We don't kill people. Leave one too many dead bodies in your wake and people start asking one too many questions. And we don't like people asking too many questions. Secondly, you don't steal from your fellow guild members. Under any circumstances. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," Armande said. He hesitated. "What should we do now?"

"Well, you've paid so you might as well take advantage of the facilities. Sweat it out here for a while, then move on to the next room and let the attendants take care of you. Then you can do as you wish, but I recommend a dip in the saltwater pool." He inclined his head. "Shadow hide you both."

We waited and sweated and waited and sweated some more, until we'd judged enough time had gone by and I was starting to feel faint. Then we left the steam room, sweat trickling down between my shoulder blades.

Once again we were split off into private rooms. Thankfully Swims-Under-Moonlight was nowhere to be seen, but the flame-haired Breton girl who attended me was considerably more intimidating. I lay on a slab with the towel spread across my private parts while she scraped the layer of oil and sweated-out grime from my skin with a hooked implement like a sickle. It left me red and stinging, but cleaner than I'd ever been in my life. And as she teased out all the knots from my hair with a wide-toothed comb, the sensation of her fingers working over my scalp and around my temples was deeply soporific. My eyes slid shut. I was hardly aware of a hand sliding down over my belly in an oddly meaningful way.

"Shall I continue, sir?"

"With what?" I opened my eyes and looked at her.

Her eyebrows were raised expectantly. My gaze dropped to where her hand lay on my thigh, her fingers poking under the edge of the towel. And her hand inched a little higher, fingers curling down around my inner thigh. My body responded, hardening.

And I made a noise like a scalded cat.

She gave a startled laugh as I scrambled off the slab, almost slipping on the tiles. I stammered my apologies and fled.

~o~O~o~

" _You piece of shit!_ " The woman's voice rose sharply, shrill enough to turn the heads of everyone in the inn. So far they'd had been studiously trying not to look like they were earwigging on our alcohol-fuelled argument, but now things were getting interesting.

"Fuck. I didn't mean it like that!" I lowered my voice, and took her by the shoulders. Her eyes shone with rage, so much fury packed into her slender body that I could feel her quivering. "I'm sorry, Hereia. Please, for the love of Mara, don't–"

She slapped me. Hard. So hard the sound of the slap rang out across the inn like a thunderclap. A couple of people winced and someone sniggered.

Damn, that had actually hurt. Shocked, I stared helplessly at her, hand clutching my cheek. Hereia drew her face closer to mine, her voice quieter but still loud enough that those listening – and by now _everyone_ was listening – could hear every word.

"I hope you rot in Oblivion."

"But–"

She wrenched away and stormed out. The door to the inn slammed, and a few moments later, when it was clear the floor-show was over, the soft hubbub gradually crept back. I stood there, frozen, shoulders slumped. As the bard began to play once more, I drew my shoulders up as if I'd suddenly remembering where I was and that I wasn't alone.

I moved towards the bar, running a string of the most embarrassing things that had ever happened to me in my life through my head to bring a flush to my cheeks. I beckoned the innkeeper over, and ordered a bottle of wine with strained dignity. The man on the stool beside me leaned close, baring tobacco-stained teeth. "You ask me, you're well shot of that one, lad."

I mumbled something and turned back to the bottle of wine set in front of me. The bard had begun a comedic ballad about a fool who repeatedly got himself humiliated by a string of women, and I brought my glass up to my lips to hide the instinctive smile that twitched my lips. The vicious little fucker. Up until he started playing this had all just been business, no hard feelings, but since he thought my humiliation so amusing I was going to enjoy this.

And I kept drinking, finished the bottle of wine, and ordered another. I'd knocked back an alchemical potion to line my stomach and protect me from the immediate effects of the alcohol, but it wouldn't protect me from tomorrow's hangover. That I was dreading, but I was seventeen years old and the next morning seemed a lifetime away.

I had dressed for the role, picked out the fashionable clothes in quality cloth that a reasonably well-heeled Nibenese merchant's son might wear, and it had been a strange experience to realise that some of the looks flashing my way as I walked down the street were of admiration and interest, rather than caution or disgust. The thrill of being on a job threaded through me, kept me focused on the role I was playing, the heartsick idiot drinking and mourning the woman he had lost through his own ineptitude.

I was passing drunk by the time we made our move, and trying to order another from the distinctly unimpressed innkeeper.

"I think you've had quite enough," she said. "Perhaps it's time you thought about heading home."

I shook my head, felt the world spiral around me. Damn, maybe the potion hadn't been strong enough. "I'm not ready to go home. Another bottle, if you please."

"Sir–"

A hefty slap across my shoulder-blades knocked me against the bar. "Ah, let the man have another drink, the poor bastard. Can't you see he's lost his lady love?" Armande sank onto the stool beside me, hearty in the way only a man can be in the face of another man's drunken heartbreak.

"He's drunk out of his wits. And I gather he's not entirely innocent in the matter. He ought to go home."

"And I'll make sure he does," Armande said. "But have a heart, there's nothing waiting for him there, no welcoming body warming his bed. Let the man drown his sorrows for a little while longer, eh? Another bottle of wine." He slapped his money down on the bar. "And won't you take a drink for yourself?"

She smiled at Armande. "I will at that. But you see he doesn't spew everywhere."

"I'll make sure of it."

Another bottle of wine was set in front of me. I winced. My stomach was starting to rebel at the sharp, sour taste, and the gritty residue in the bottom of each bottle, and how the flavour lingered in my mouth long after I'd swallowed. I longed for an ale to wash the flavour away.

"My thanks, Redguard," I muttered. "Won't you join me?" Armande inclined his head, his eyes intent on me, searching to make sure I was faking and not genuinely drunk . I gave two little taps of my ring finger on my glass – _all's well –_ and Armande gave the slightest nod in response.

"We've all been there, friend," he said as I poured him a glass of wine. And alchemical potion or not, I had to squint to make sure to get the wine into the glass without spilling it all over the bar.

Armande whistled to the bard and flicked a Septim at him. "Sing _At the Winter's Fair_ ," he called "For my drunken friend here. He needs to be reminded of how fickle and heartless women can be." Armande glanced around at the nearest woman. "Not you," he added, with a charming grin. " _Obviously_."

"Are you certain your friend is awake to hear it?" the bard called back, laughing.

In reply I wagged my hand. "M'awake."

As the bard began to sing, I swivelled on my stool – and almost fell off in the process. He had a fine voice. Nowhere near so good as Brandt had been, mind you, but fair to middling. His voice was a little too sweet to my tastes, and he had a tendency to add irritating little twiddly bits to the end of each verse, but I could see how his voice might charm a woman. And he was handsome too, but you could tell he knew it.

The song was about the fickleness and the cruelty of women: a man betrothed to a girl he'd known since childhood falls in love one day with a lady who comes riding through his village. She flirts with him and plays havoc with his heart until he spurns his betrothed to ride away with her, only for the lady to grow bored of him and cast him off for another. If you ask me I think the song says rather more about the fickleness and the cruelty of _men_ , but that's by the by.

When he'd finished I took a cautious nip from a bottle concealed in the palm of my hand, applauded drunkenly, and fell off my stool. Armande laughed, sliding off his stool to help me up, and the bard, sensing no doubt a fat tip, hurried over to help.

My stomach knotted. Saliva flooded my mouth. The back of my throat plummeted down into my insides, while my gullet seemed to be attempted to crawl up and out of my mouth. I groaned, the sound entirely unfaked, as were the surging waves of nausea. "Oh Gods..."

"Get him outside!" The innkeeper, like many in her profession, had a kind of narrow second sight for those who are just about to puke.

They hauled me outside, my arms slung over their shoulders. The night air hit us, soft and warm as velvet, and I stumbled forwards, splattering vomit on the cobbles. They laughed at me, swapping the bottle of wine between them.

Groaning, I sank back against the wall and slid down."I'm dying."

"Nah. You're just shit-faced." Armande hunkered down beside me, grinning. Unlike me he was mostly just drunk and enjoying himself a little too much at my expense. I shot him a baleful glare and he winked. "You know what you need?"

I grinned wistfully up at the stars. "A whore'd be nice."

Killein snorted. "Could be wishful thinking there, my friend."

"I don't know." Armande's hand fumbled at my belt for my coin purse. He twisted to flash it at the bard, and a sharp-teethed little grin passed between then. "A whore or two might be just the thing later, although I think my friend may be past appreciating it by then. But first a drink on my dear friend's credit." He slung my arm over his shoulder and glanced at the bard. "Won't you join us? I'd appreciate some company that isn't like to splatter vomit on my shoes? And my friend here is _very_ generous when drunk."

"And at the height of generosity when close to passing out, I suspect," Killein observed, grinning. "Certainly, I'll join you and gladly."

One thing I've learned in my years: it's a rare bard that turns down an offer of a free drink.

"I'm Jurus," Armande said. "My friend here is... uh... Ruficcio."

"–Raffeco," I slurred. "Can't even get my name right."

And so we moved on to a rather less salubrious inn than the King and Queen. A partially sunken cellar, crammed with people, since the alcohol was cheap and it had the reputation for never turning anyone away, no matter how drunk they were. The air was filled with the lingering reek of vomit, tobacco and sweat and the rushes were sticky underfoot. Armande elbowed his way through the crush, beating a path to the table. At least in theory. In practice the crowd made way for him and then closed in again after he'd passed. I found myself gawping at a pair of breasts pressed against my upper arm. On instinct, my attention went to my purse, then it wavered a bit, because I was seventeen and there were _breasts_ pressed against my arm. So close enough I could see a pair of moles tucked away inside her cleavage, even a sliver of aureole, half-concealed by the lacy trim that ran along the neckline.

And then the bard was gripping my arm, and dragging me away. "I think you're in quite enough trouble already, my friend," he said, laughing, as he slung his pack and his lute beneath the table where they would be safe. The people on the benches reluctantly bunched up to make room, then shifted rather less reluctantly when I groaned like I was about to be sick again.

"I think you're right." I slumped forwards. "I don't know what to do. I loved her so much, and now... Gods."

Armande set three foaming tankards in front of us.

 _Ale. Thank fuck._ "She was the only woman I ever wanted."

"Godsdamn," Armande said. "I reckon give it a week or so and she'll come crawling back. I knew this woman once..." And he launched into a story we'd heard many times from Tertius. The details seldom stayed the same from one story to the next – he never had been able to keep track of his lies – but every story carried the same basic message: you can't trust women. "Ain't a man living who hasn't had their heart broken at least once."

Killein grinned. "And if you show me that man, I'll show you a man whose life wasn't worth living."

They smacked their tankards together, sloshing ale over the table. "You sound like a man who knows," Armande said.

"I've had my moments."

"Had your heart broken?"

"Not my heart," Killein said. "And hardly broken. Even if she did do her damndest to rip it out of my chest, it's still beating."

"Sounds like there's a story there."

 _Godsdamn it, Armande,. Don't sound too bastarding eager_. I groaned softly, set my hands against the table and tried to stand up, drawing irritated glances from the rest of the table.

"Easy there, you drunken idiot," Armande said. His hand gently pressed me back down. "You fuck off, our line of credit fucks off with you, remember?"

I mumbled something and fumbled for my tankard, spilled ale down down my chin, soaking my shirt. Killein watched me as I pawed at my sodden clothes, praying I was pulling this off. He was a bard, after all; he'd seen every level of drunkenness first hand, from slightly tipsy to raging incoherence. Sanguine's house has many rooms.

When Killein turned back to Armande, I slipped my hand into my pocket and fingered the forged letter.

"Can you keep a secret?" Killein asked.

"Me?" Armande snorted. "Fuck no. I'm shit at keeping secrets. Ask anyone. And I'm guessing you can't either. I never met a bard who could bear to keep his mouth shut for longer than a minute."

"That's a damn slander," the bard said, grinning. "You'll find we're good enough at keeping secrets when we want to, friend."

"But this isn't a secret you want to keep?"

Killein's eyes darkened. "Ever hear–" He paused to take a swig of ale, and when he spoke again his voice was casual. "–of the Rusus family? And of Lady Rusus in particular?"

"What about 'em?"

"Well, Her Ladyship is a patron of mine. Or she was. Understand I use the word 'patron' in a very specific sense." His voice was ripe as bitter fruit. "Bitch. Happy enough to fuck me when it was _convenient_."

Armande snorted. "You're full of shit, friend."

I lifted my head. The bard's malicious smile and sharp eyes gave him the look of a rat-like creature, golden-furred and sleek. And he didn't like being questioned – I could see it in the set of his shoulders, the hard lines around his mouth.

"You think I'm lying?"

"Well, I think you're a bard. So... yes."

Armande judged it perfectly. His smile was the perfect blend of contempt and curiosity, the cock-sure arrogance of a boy who was very obviously fronting it and secretly felt out of his depth in the city. The trick to fooling people is to offer them what they secretly long for, and what this sly-eyed bard secretly longed for was to impress hard-as-nails men like Armande with tales of wonder about the amorous adventures of his cock. We had him.

Killein gave a sharp bark of laughter. He drew something out from his pack, a small, unremarkable-looking casket. It looked like a jewellery box, but plainly fashioned and almost ugly, nothing any lady would be likely to keep in her bedroom. My eyes glanced off it, and did the same again when I forced them back. It was almost impossible to keep my gaze resting on the box for any length of time.

 _I'm not important,_ that box seemed to say. _Nothing in me worth stealing. I'm probably empty. Fuck off over there. Have a look in that chest instead, why don't you? You're wasting your time with me._

Armande blinked, rubbing his eyes. "What the–"

"Clever, isn't it?" Killein said. "I picked it up in High Rock last time I was there. It's a puzzle casket. Enchanted and the lock's unpickable." His fingers ran tenderly over the box. "It cost me an arm and a fucking leg, but it comes in very handy indeed. My most precious possession, this and what's inside." He did something complicated with his fingers, and the box snapped open, revealing an interior lined with rose-coloured satin, and a folded letter nestled within.

I drew the forged letter from my pocket.

"What the hell's that?" Armande said.

Killein unfolded the letter, smoothed it out gently. "Proof. Some of the things that woman did. They shocked even me."

Armande glanced at the letter. "Yeah," he said, sounding unimpressed.

"See for yourself," the bard said, and flicked the letter towards him. Armande took it and squinted down at the parchment in the dim light. And I fumbled for my tankard again and knocked it over.

Armande jerked back as ale spilled across the table. As I made a grab for the upturned tankard, I let the forgery drop onto the bench. In an instant the switch was made, and the bard hadn't even noticed.

"Gods," he spat, red-faced and furious. "You drunken fucking fool."

I slurred my apologies, trying to mop up the spilled ale and succeeding only in wetting my sleeves. Armande laughed at both of us, holding the letter out of the way.

"Give me that. Godsamn fools." The bard snatched it back and folded it away. He placed the letter back in the casket and snapped the lid shut.

~o~O~o~

Afterwards, Killein and Armande left me sprawled on a couch in the parlour of a brothel that smelled of seed and spice and skooma while they vanished upstairs. Once they'd gone I pushed myself up and nodded to the whores, who seemed bemused but not particularly surprised, as if this sort of thing happened every day. To live the life of a whore in the Imperial City is to lead the very definition of an interesting life. I tipped them all generously to tell the bard that I'd been thrown out onto the street should he ask and left.

Against my better judgement, I found a quiet spot to wait for Armande, knowing full well that I might be waiting a while. It wasn't long before I was beginning to question the wisdom of not heading home. The atmosphere of the brothel had been heady, and the alchemical draught hadn't been quite strong enough to completely shield me from the effects of the alcohol, especially after I'd introduced my guts to the gutter.

I felt like my body was dancing an awkward jerky gavotte, with my guts out of step, frantically trying to keep up.

Lucky for me then, that Armande wasn't in the mood for whoring.

"Thank the Gods," I murmured as he passed my hiding spot. I gave a low whistle, and he didn't break step, his eyes glinting as he passed beneath the lantern. I followed him, sticking to the shadows.

Around the corner, down an alleyway where it was unlikely we'd be seen, I caught up with him. "I thought I'd be waiting for hours. Not in the mood to celebrate?"

He glanced back with a faintly wistful expression. "I admit I was tempted, especially after all we spent out. Maybe I'll go back. Get my money's worth." Then he gave a wolfish grin and clapped me on the back. "Show me."

I produced the letter with a flourish and a sweeping bow. He laughed, and he clapped me on the back again, so hard I staggered.

"Godsdamn. Stop doing that."

"Fuck me, Jack, we did it. We fucking did it."

I slipped the letter back into its concealed pocket. "Told you it'd work."

"Yeah, yeah."

I thumped my shoulder into his, grinning despite the lurching misery of my guts. "See, the thing about me, Armande... The thing you have to remember about me..." I paused, swallowing down a sudden wave of nausea.

"Forgotten, have you?"

"Fuck off." I wiped my mouth, forced a grin again. "The thing you have to remember about me is that I'm _fucking brilliant_."

We should have been prepared. We should have been ready. We should have fucking known.

I heard it as we neared the end of the bridge that connected the city proper to the waterfront isle. The whisper of a blade in the shadows, the darkness coming alive around us. And maybe a blade or two I'd be able to handle, but magic? I even felt it being cast and there wasn't a damn thing I could do as it streaked from the darkness, freezing first me, and than Armande, to the spot. I opened my mouth to scream for the guard, found my voice had been stolen away.

Masked figures emerged from the darkness and grabbed us, dragging us out of the light. My feet were heavy as lead, my arm a dead weight, but I forced my will into my screaming muscles, reached for my dagger–

And received a blow to my gut that knocked the wind from me.

Held from behind, I watched one of the masked figures approach, eyes glittering above the scarf that concealed the lower half of his face. He nodded to the man holding me, and my jaw was gripped by biting fingers, my jaw forced open. And a bottle was drawn from the folds of a cloak. I fought, my breath and silenced voice rasping in my chest, hoarse rasping little threats, utterly impotent, because no matter what I threatened to do to him, I couldn't move, and whatever poison was in that bottle, it was being brought inexorably towards my mouth.

"Think you're so fucking clever?" a voice hissed in my ear. Armande grunted in pain somewhere behind me. My teeth ground on the glass neck of the bottle.

And liquid flooded my mouth. There wasn't a godsdamned thing I could do about it. It rushed to my throat, flooding me, and the gods, how it burned.

I wrenched my head free, spat it into the face of the man in front of me. Earned myself a hard backhand slap that would have sent me reeling if I wasn't being gripped so tightly.

"Hold him still."

This time they pinched my nose closed and held my jaw shut. My teeth ground together, but with the burning liquid filling my throat, I couldn't breath. And still I fought the urge to swallow, the pain in my throat and sinuses so acute my eyes blurred with tears.

The figure in front of me drew closer. "Know what that is?"

Oh Gods, I had no air. I had no choice but to swallow, choke the liquid down. It left a burning trail that I felt all the way down my gullet, and a feeling of warmth spread through me.

The figure leaned closer still, lowering its voice in menace.

"It's _Cyrodilic brandy_."

I blinked. "Wh...what?"

And the voice shifted, rising in pitch. "Tastes good, doesn't it?" It was rich with amusement now, filled with the faint lilt of Alinor. "Welcome to the guild, idiot."

"You... What... You..." As I was released, I glanced to the side, saw Armande as lost and furious as I felt.

The other figures were all pulling down their scarves, revealing their faces. And they were all grinning as if our humiliation was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.

"Nothing to say, Jack?" Minelcar asked.

I sought and I found something. I drew a breath.

"You cunt. You total and utter cunt."

Minelcar only grinned wider.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thank you to tafferling for betaing.**

* * *

 **Chapter Eleven**

 _'If a Thieves Guild were to be operational in Cyrodiil, one would think that crime would be rampant, which it is not. The very nature of thieves makes it impossible for them to trust one another sufficiently to work together for very long. By nature a thief is a rule breaker. Therefore an organization that has rules would fail if all its members were thieves. For these reasons, I dispute the existence of a modern day Thieves Guild in Cyrodiil.'_

– _Myth or Menace? Conjecture as to the existence of a modern Thieves Guild_

At first I was convinced that Armande might actually murder the smirking Altmer. I'd never seen his expression so still and set with fury. I was tempted to do the honours myself, especially when I recognised the figure who'd been holding me still as Killein, but the brandy did taste pretty damn fine, and after a conciliatory glass or two it was hard not to see the funny side.

Sort of.

We sat by a bonfire at the edge of the Rumare, far enough along the shore for the guards to not bother trudging out to move us on. There were about twelve or so of us, all young, a mixture of races and personalities, the watchful, hard-eyed ones and the merry, smiling ones both. I recognised the Breton girl from the bathhouse, who had slipped her hand so gently underneath my towel, and whose name I learned was Claudine. She was watching me as she murmured with an Argonian girl in a patched woollen dress, flashed me a smile when she saw me glance over.

One glass of brandy down and I still bore a grudge. Two glasses down, and, with my sadly abused stomach no longer feeling quite so much like a wrung-out cloth, I could acknowledge how from a different angle their actions were amusing. Three glasses down, and I thought the whole fucking mess was hilarious and I had a new favourite drink.

That's the magic of Cyrodilic brandy. It's fucking expensive, but by the gods it's good. Three glasses of that and all's right with the world.

"So none of it was real," Armande was saying, while I perched atop a boulder and gazed at my empty glass, thinking wistfully about the mouthful I'd spat out and what a godsdamned waste that had been. "All that work for nothing. We were just pissing into the wind."

"Hardly." Minelcar produced the letter with a flick of his fingers. It burst into flames, and the wind caught at the fragments of ash, sending them fluttering up towards the indigo sky like moths.

A shiver. A twist of my gut. My hand tightened around the glass of brandy.

"The letter was real enough," Minelcar continued. "The story about Lady Rusus and the bard was all true, except it wasn't Killein of course. He couldn't get himself fucked in a whorehouse with a purseful of coin."

Killein made an obscene gesture at Minelcar, then bared his teeth. "Sadly true tonight, I'll confess. You two aren't the only ones who made a fast exeunt without getting their monies worth. And I'll forever hold it against the pair of you." He gave a theatrical sigh. "What a waste."

"It was a job," Minelcar said, ignoring him. "It just wasn't yours."

"So you tricked us," Armande said. He hadn't had quite as much brandy as me, but then he hadn't had the potion to protect him from the effects of the wine and ale we'd been drinking. The edge of the hangover pulsed at the very edge of my temples, staved off for the moment. The reprieve wouldn't last.

"We wanted to see how you worked up close and personal," Minelcar said, and brandished the bottle. "Another?"

Killein pushed himself up, moved back towards the fire. He was welcomed with a burst of laughter as he sank down, and Claudine leaned over to kiss his cheek. Her dress slipped off one shoulder, her hair loose now and tumbling back in a curtain of–

"Jack?"

"Mm?" I snapped my attention back to Minelcar, who was grinning at me and holding out the bottle of brandy. Armande, I saw, had already succumbed to the temptation. "Oh no, I've..." I stared down at my glass, unexpectedly empty, then wordlessly held it out, let Minelcar top it up. Killein picked out a few notes on the lute and began to sing.

"So we're in the guild. Now what?" Armande persisted.

Minelcar shrugged. "You go out and steal. We don't give orders in this guild."

"'A network of like-minded individuals, half-hidden in the shadows, offering each other a helping hand'," I said.

Minelcar smiled. "You have an excellent memory. And a talent for mimicry. Both fine assets in a thief. I'm sure we'll be able to find work for you both."

"I thought you didn't give out orders," Armande said.

"We don't. Not as such. But Sam gets certain requests from time to time. Like the lovely Lady Rusus's letter. And any one of us..." He paused, raising his voice so he could be heard by the others, "–the ones with talent anyway–" Killein made another obscene gesture, breaking neither the song, nor his lute-playing, "–could be called upon to assist another guildmember in a job they might be planning. All optional of course. The guild gets ten percent of the cut of any scores you make, plus a cut via the fence, and Sam can take care of any bounties the more careless thieves might happen to accrue. Although–" He smiled, topping up both our glasses with another generous dash of brandy. "–I'm sure you two won't have any problems in that regard."

"Yeah, don't bet on it." Armande sighed.

"Don't worry about it for the moment would be my advice," Minelcar said. "Enjoy the brandy. Enjoy the evening. The Thief is gazing down on us and we're all blessed this night."

I lay back on the rock. "What about the guildmaster? What's he like?"

Above the rim of his glass, Minelcar's eyes flickered with an expression I didn't catch. "There is no guildmaster. Only the council."

"The council?" I asked.

"The Three Doyens. Sam and the two others. They're the ones that run the guild." He grinned, a sharp little flash of teeth. "Unless you're talking about the Gray Fox."

I thought about the lead coin. The cowled man on one side, the crouching fox on the other. "Who's he?"

"He's said to be the leader of the guild. That the council report to him. But he doesn't exist." He knocked back the rest of his brandy and stood up in one swift movement. "Come, I'll let Killein tell it. He loves the sound of his voice so much it'd be a crime to rob him of the opportunity to bore us all to an agonisingly tedious death."

"Fuck you with a rusty dagger, Min," Killein sang out, plucking a few strings in harmony. "Sideways."

"I shall look forward to it, my love," Min called back, beckoning us over. I sat up, slithered drunkenly off the rock. Armande caught and righted me, then shoved me forward, grinning. The heat of the crackling fire burned my cheeks as we rejoined the group, I sank down cross-legged on the earthd. Armande found himself a spot lounging against a rock, and Min collapsed into the lap of a young Khajiit called Jobasha, whose braids were threaded with beads and the delicate little bones of birds.

"Our new brothers want to know about the Gray Fox," Minelcar said.

"He's a fairy tale," the Breton girl said. She'd wrapped a coil of hair around her finger, her eyes on me. In the light of the fire, the angles of her face seemed sharper and less human. Her smile was lopsided, showing the gap between her teeth, and she sat as a child might, the bare soles of her feet pressed together, her knees falling outwards, and her skirt gathered in her lap. A bottle of ale rested in the crook of her knee. Killein shot me a look, set his lute aside and slung his arm around her shoulders. His smile was no longer quite so friendly.

"I'm not so sure about that," he said. "I've heard tales that say otherwise, that the Gray Fox is as real as any one of us, only he's no man, not truly. He's–"

"A woman?" Claudine said, laughing into his face. He dragged her closer, buried his face in the curve of her neck and did something that made her squeal and giggle.

"Or perhaps he is Khajiit," Jobasha suggested.

"Neither woman, nor Khajiit," Killein said, squeezing Claudine's thigh. "He's human, or he was once. Now he is a shadow made flesh, and can never be killed. He can turn himself invisible at will. Or take the form of a mouse and slip through the tiniest of gaps. He wears a cowl he stole from Nocturnal herself three hundred years ago." He took the bottle of ale from Claudine and took a swig, while the fire cracked and a flurry of sparks burst up, spiralling upwards into the crisp night air. He took a long swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and passed the ale up to Armande. "–And there's been a curse on the Thieves' Guild ever since."

And now I was curious. "A curse?"

"Ah." He grinned at me. "No one bothered to tell you about the curse? Bit of an oversight, no, Min?"

"He's exaggerating," Min said, his eyes closed. Jobasha was combing through his hair with his claws.

"So there is a curse," Armande said.

"Hardly. The curse is as much a fairy tale as the Gray Fox," Min said, and the faintest note of irritation had entered his voice. "A tale told by children."

"Is Jobasha a child?" the Khajiit asked. His voice was gravelly and strongly accented, the lilts of Morrowind and Elsweyr entwined. Min made a disgusted noise, but the Khajiit continued. "Jobasha thinks the Gray Fox is no fairy tale. He exists, as surely as you and this one. The council know it, and so do you, Min."

Armande was looking grave. Drunk to Oblivion, but thinking things through, as serious as ever. I felt a sudden rush of affection for him, and not all of it inspired by the glasses of Cyrodilic brandy warming my insides. "Tell me about the curse," he said.

Min opened his mouth, but Jobasha spoke before he could. "Perhaps you should take a look around, Redguard. Jobasha wonders why we are here on the banks of the Rumare, risking rain and wet fur. Why do the thieves have no guildhouse?"

"We do have a guildhouse," Claudine said. "Of sorts, anyway. The bath house."

Jobasha's ears flattened, the fur around his neck standing on end. "The baths," he spat. "For your kind, perhaps, and for the Argonians, but not for Khajiit. Why is this one not welcome in the guildhouse?"

"It's hardly the guild's fault you don't like getting your fur wet," Min said lovingly. "You know you're as welcome there as anyone else." He reached up, buried his fingers in the fur beneath Jobasha's ears. The Khajiit tilted his head, making a gentle rumbling sound. The moment felt private somehow, partly affectionate and partly sexual. I looked away, felt Claudine's eyes on me. She flashed me a sly little smile. "Anyway," Min was saying, "who needs a guildhouse on a night like this?"

"You're only saying that because it's not raining," Killein said.

"Aye, true enough." Min levered himself out of Jobasha's lap. It was Armande who had asked the original question, but it was to me that Min spoke and Armande's eyes narrowed at the slight. "There is no curse, nor any Gray Fox either, but you'll find that most thieves are as superstitious as they are avaricious and ignorant. The story is the guild's dying, that no matter what the council do we're losing money hand over fist. That any deals we make are weighted against us, and that the glorious golden days of the guild are gone forever."

He reached out, seized the bottle of ale as it passed around the circle. "Well, I'm older than all of you, I'm older even than Sam Bantien, and I say there never were any glorious golden days of the guild. It's every man for himself, and it always has been so long as there've been thieves. You're all godsdamned fools for yearning for a time which never existed. Go on stealing for glory and honour, if you wish, but we're thieves, by Mara, and I say fuck glory, it's money for me every inch of the way."

Killein let out a whoop. "I'll drink to that," he said, holding his hand out for the bottle of ale. He brandished it toward the sky, to the constellation of the Thief. "To money!" he cried, and we all echoed the toast. Killein took a swig from the bottle. "And I'll just ignore that fact you just called us all ignorant fools, Min, you fucker."

"And avaricious," Claudine said. "Don't forget avaricious."

Killein shrugged. "Aye, but that one's true."

And now it was time for me to get shit-faced for real. Our numbers ebbed and flowed throughout the night as other members of the guild and assorted hangers joined for a few drinks or to listen to Killein's music, which grew rather less musical as the night went on.

We were men and women foolish enough to believe the night and the shadows belonged to us. All of us raucous and rowdy and heedless of the rest of the city around us. The brandy was long gone, but there was ale and wine, and it seemed like every newcomer brought a bottle or two with them, and even though it felt like sacrilege to wash away the lingering honeyed flavour of the brandy with relative swill – although much of the ale I drank that night was very fine indeed – I drank with the rest. It was a celebration held in my honour after all, mine and Armande's.

Armande was deep in conversation with a Dunmer girl dressed in boy's clothes, yet kept her jet-black hair long enough that she could have sat on it. She lay back, her head pillowed on her hand, while Armande sat beside her, toying with her hair. I joined with the singing, a bawdy song that had the whole group yelling the filthy, fast-paced chorus, until the heat of the fire began to make me feel dizzy, and then I pushed myself up, made my way unsteadily away from the fire.

Armande glanced up, shot me a 'You okay?' look, and I nodded.

At the edge of the lake, I cupped my hands in the water and splashed my face and the back of my neck, then sat, gazing out over the moon-kissed rippling waters. There was a scuff of footsteps behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder, saw Claudine leaning against a rock, watching me.

"Are you going to run away again?" she asked.

"I think..." I straightened up, balance wavering. "I think I'm probably too drunk to run away. I'd trip over and then I'd just feel like an idiot. Well... even more of an idiot than I do already."

She laughed, and I leaned on the rock beside her. In the distance the Ayleid ruins seemed to absorb the moonlight, glowing silvery in the darkness. "How are you finding the city?" she asked, glancing up at me.

"Big." I sighed. "I've never been anywhere so massive. And so many people. I knew it'd be bigger than Bravil, but I didn't realise how big until I was here."

"I've never been to Bravil." She sounded faintly wistful. "Never been out of the Imperial City. I'd like to, one day. My mother used to talk about taking me to Daggerfall to visit family, back before she got sick..."

"Are you in the guild?"

"Me? No, I'm useless. Killein and Min have tried to teach me a thing or two but I haven't the knack for it. And it was never really what I wanted, being a thief." And as she said this, her smile slipped a little. "In the bath house... When you ran away..."

"I didn't run away," I said. "I beat a tactical retreat."

She laughed again, tucked her hair behind her delicate ear. It curved to the slightest point, adorned with an earring, silver set with a milky white stone. "Oh, is that what you call it?"

"Yep." I hesitated, then slipped an arm around her back. She leaned in, nestling against my side, the lingering smell of perfume clinging to her. Nervous, I pulled a coin out of my pocket, walked it across my knuckles without thinking.

"I thought maybe you didn't like me," she said.

"Honestly? I like you fine. I panicked."

"Am I that terrifying?"

"Gods, yes," I said with feeling, and she laughed again, watched the coin.

"You have very clever fingers," she said. She leaned in closer. "Why don't you show me what else your fingers can do?"

A twist of my wrist and the coin vanished, apparently into mid-air, although in truth I'd just palmed it. Another twist of my wrist and it reappeared between my finger and thumb. Her eyes darted up to my face, a smile playing around her lips.

"That's very impressive, Jack," she said, softly, "But it wasn't quite what I meant."

My fist closed around the coin as she leaned closer, her breasts brushing against my chest, her lips finding mine. My hand rose, not entirely certain what part of her anatomy to cup and finally settling on her cheek since that seemed safest. I kissed her, tasted ale on her lips. Groaned at the way she tilted her head up to meet me as I pressed her against the rock, kissing her hard and then harder, clumsy with alcohol and adolescent desire. My teeth clashed against hers because I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing, and her legs parted, allowing me to press in closer.

Until I drew back, breathing hard. I felt dizzy from what felt like lack of air. "Sorry. It's just... you and Killein..." I swallowed, felt my cheeks burn. "I mean... You're not...?"

" _Killein?_ " She gave a soft bitter laugh. "We're _not_."

"Okay..."

She wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me closer. "Killein and I are friends, Jack, that's all."

They'd looked like a damned sight more than friends to me, but I was drunk and so hard it was painful, and the smell of the soap and perfume clinging to her skin and hair was filling my lungs.

It felt like falling. All of it, from the moment I kissed her, to the moment she tugged me along the edge of the lake, away from the bonfire and the raised voices of my newfound friends and fellow thieves. And of course I was drunk enough and stupid enough to believe that our disappearance might not have been noticed, that perhaps no one would realise. She kissed me again, harder now, harder than I had kissed her, and pulled me down to lie atop her on the hard baked earth. It was too fast, too frantic, and it felt like falling.

There was a long moment afterwards, where she lay beneath me as I recovered, gasping. Then her hand slid up underneath my shirt, over my spine. "Jack?"

"Sorry." I rolled off her, sprawled on my back. Stared up at the stars, at the faces of the two moons. She pulled down her skirt with a twitch of her hand. I adjusted my clothing, tucking myself away. "Was it–"

Fuck, I didn't know what to say. And I didn't feel any different, only dizzier, like I hadn't got enough air, and slightly sticky. I'd expected to feel different.

The fire was starting to die. A few others were still around the fire when we returned, the knuckles of my hand briefly brushing against hers. A half-hearted cheer rose up from a couple of them, but Armande and the Dunmer, Jobasha and Min, and even Killein were all gone. Claudine exhaled, brushed her hair back again, the bangles on her wrist chiming like bells. I saw the way her gaze flitted to the spot where Min and Jobasha had been sitting and a fist squeezed around my heart.

Not Killein at all.

I walked her home to the house she shared with her mother in the Temple Plaza District, and at her door, I stopped, uncertain whether I should try to follow her in, or kiss her again, or let her be for the night. "I do like you, Claudine," I said. And even drunk as I was I could hear how like a boy I sounded.

She kissed my forehead. "You're very sweet, Jack." Somehow she didn't make it sound exactly like a compliment. Her hand pressed gently against my chest, pushing me away. "Now go home and try not to get murdered on the way."

It was hard not to feel I'd taken a wrong step along the way. That I'd stumbled somewhere along the road of my life. And as I threaded my uneven way through the streets of the city, which felt at times like trying to thread the head of a needle with a length of unravelling thread, I told myself it was just the alcohol. The headache was starting to creep in closer, circling me like a scavenger sensing a wounded animal. It wouldn't be long now, and fuck me, I'd be regretting tonight when it finally had me in its jaws.

I considered returning to the bonfire, but I only wanted to sink into bed. The landlord had locked up the inn for the night, and wouldn't respond to my hammering on the door. I picked the lock, squinting and cursing the pox-ridden bastard's name, and thank the fucking gods that none of the guards had passed, because I was in no state to be stealthy. Only when I got the door open and stumbled inside did I hear the landlord's heavy tread in the corridor.

His florid face glowered at me, bleary with sleep. "This isn't a fucking brothel," he snapped. "I expect I'd like working here more if it was. So tell your friend–" He stopped and squinted at me, suddenly suspicious. "Hang about, how'd you get in? I locked up."

"The... door was open?" I was far too tired to lie convincingly. All I wanted was to fall into bed, pull the blankets over my head and pray the morning never came while the room spun around me.

He grunted, and scowled past me down the corridor. "Could've sworn..."

I didn't stay around to hear any more. I trudged on to the ladder that led up to the hatch to our room. Which was locked. The key had been left in the lock.

"Godsdamn it, Armande," I muttered, and hammered on the hatch. There was a faint thump from inside, followed by a sound I recognised as Armande's frustrated growl. And then silence. I hammered again, and he swore. The thumping sound of footsteps. A snap of the lock, the hatch creaked open and Armande glared down at me.

"Fuck the fuck off," he said.

"What sort of welcome is that?"

"I've got company, Jack. Fuck off. Find somewhere else to sleep."

The landlord's heavy tread made the floorboards creak. "Tell your friend this ain't no brothel."

"He says it's not a–"

"I heard. Tell the landlord to piss off."

"No! He'll punch me and I'm too rat-arsed to fight." My position was making me dizzy, and I clung on to the ladder with both hands. "Come on, Armande. I'm drunk. I'm tired. I want to go to bed."

There was a feminine murmur from inside, and he sighed. "Fine." He let the hatch drop open, while the landlord craned his neck beneath me, trying to see inside. I crawled into a room that smelled of sweat and sex. The Dunmer was finishing buttoning her shirt, and I saw a flash of grey-blue breasts, tipped with nipples so dark they were almost black. I averted my eyes, staring as hard as I could at the stain on the wall.

Armande moved across to her, his hands on her waist. "You don't have to go," he said. "I can turf him out."

"No you fucking can't," I muttered under my breath, and sank on the bed and tried to remove my boots by kicking ineffectually at the air. It didn't work.

"He'll willingly go," Armande said, raising his voice. "Because he's a true friend and we're close as brothers, and he'd never want to—"

"Armande." She cut him off, placed a hand on his cheek. "I really do have to go." They kissed, deep and unnecessarily loud. "I'll see you again, perhaps."

"Do you want me to come with you? Make sure you don't get mugged?"

She gave a soft chuckle. "If anyone does try to mug me, they'll regret it, believe me. Thank you, but I'll be fine. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." And then another unfeasibly long kiss.

She nodded to me as she left, her eyes hooded, then slipped out the hatch. In the corridor the landlord was still lurking. I heard his aggrieved voice saying, "This isn't a brothel, love," and her calm cool voice replying, "I can see that. If it were a brothel, it would be cleaner."

Armande snorted, closed the hatch.

"I like her," I said. He glared at me. " _What_?" And he said nothing. I groaned, pinched the bridge of my nose. "I would've gone. Eventually."

He locked the hatch and dragged the washbasin back over it. Neither of us trusted the landlord as far as we could throw him. "Why couldn't you stay at what's-her-name's?"

"You mean Claudine, and I couldn't stay with her because she lives with her mother."

"So she says."

I collapsed back on the bed, covered my eyes with my hand. "Fucking hell. Look, can we do this in the morning? I haven't been this drunk since–" I broke off. Armande's back had stiffened. I mouthed, "Fuck," silently at the sloping ceiling.

"Yeah," he said. "You're right, I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" My voice sounded hollow and fake. "Are you feeling all right?"

And as fake as I sounded, he still flashed me a weak smile and sat down on the bed. "I miss Elise. She should have been here for this."

"I know."

"She would have loved tonight. Brey too. It should have been the four of us. We should have done it together."

"And instead you've just got me." A crack in my voice, the sharp painful twist of tears in my throat. "You lucky bastard."

"Yeah, but we did it. We're in the Imperial City. We've joined the Thieves' Guild. You always do what you set out to do."

I sighed. "And yet somehow it never turns out like we expect it to, does it?"

He shrugged. "Nothing ever does."

I stripped to my braies, bundled up my clothes and tossed them halfway across the room to go crusty in the corner. Yet another set of clothes I'd probably ruined. I jerked back the blanket and collapsed into the bed with a groan that echoed the frame creaking under my weight. Then I shifted, squinting in puzzlement as Armande sank down onto the bed beside me. "Hang on, the sheets are wet. Why– Oh fucking _gods_."

Armande burst out laughing as I scrambled up, and in my haste me legs tangled in the bedclothes, nearly sending me tumbling off off the bed, shoulder blades first.

"It's not fucking funny. I was lying on it."

"You've lain on worse."

"Ain't the point. _Arsehole._ " I pointed at him. "Move over. You can lie on that side. I'm not lying on your spunk."

"What if I don't want to move over?"

"Then I'll vomit all over you in the middle of the night." That wasn't an idle threat. "Come on. Move." I tried to shove him over, received an elbow jab in my ribs for my troubles. But he slid over to the other side.

"Talos wept," he muttered, but I could hear the grin in his voice. "To think I could have been sharing a bed with Miaran instead." He rolled over, dragging the blankets off me.

"Yeah, and I bet she'd make you sleep in the wet patch too." I jerked the covers back. "And I wish you were sleeping with her instead. You think I want to be sharing a bed with _you_?" I buried my head in the under-stuffed musty-smelling pillow. Felt feathers prickling me through the worn cotton. "Gods," I groaned. "I'm not looking forward to the morning."

"Damn it, that reminds me." A burst of cold air as he jerked the blankets back and climbed out of bed. Something clunked on the floorboards as he set it down beside my side of the bed.

"Whassat?"

"The puke bucket. If you're going to spew in the middle of the night, and fuck knows it's inevitable, you make damn sure you spew in there."

"I'm not going to spew." My voice lacked conviction, and my stomach wasn't sure it agreed with me.

"Want to place a wager on that?"

"Fuck no. I'm drunk, not stupid."

Armande climbed back into bed. There was a momentary brush of freezing feet and the scratch of his toenails before I drew my foot back and kicked him. A brief tussle over the covers, until we both settled for a draw. I closed my eyes, and lay still, as if the hangover would get the message and decide to leave me alone if I didn't move.

It felt like the bucket was watching me. I shifted my head away, and the movement made the nausea worse. Armande's breath stank of beer. My stomach gave a sickening lurch.

"So," he said. "You and Claudette..."

"Claudine."

"The two of you–"

"Oh _gods_." I hauled myself to the side of the bed, making a last minute desperate grab for the salvation of the bucket. The bucket that might as well be blessed by the Nine, because it meant I wouldn't have to spend the morning clearing up sick.

Armande sighed. "I fucking knew it," he said, wearily, as the contents of my stomach made a break for freedom.

I crumpled out of bed and cradled the bucket. The smell brought on another wrenching twist of my stomach and a strangled, "Fuuuuck–" and another retching cough. I rested my head against the rim of the bucket, groaning. "Armande, I think I'm dying."

Armande rolled over and thumped his pillow. "Why do I get the feeling it's going to be a long fucking night?"

~o~O~o~

That bucket got a lot of use all through the night, and well into the morning. I was left a rag doll sweaty mess, my hair tangled around my face and tear tracks on my cheeks. And in between I'd crawl back into bed, and bury my face in the pillow, my gut feeling like a mortal enemy (I suspect it felt the same about me after everything I'd put it through that night).

The light of dawn crept through the gaps in the shutters, unwelcome because dawn meant the morning had come and with it my hangover, the bastarding spectre at the feast. Every vein in my skull pulsed, filled with splinters.

Armande prodded me awake none too gently.

"Morning, precious," he said, grinning.

"'ck'off," I said, or tried to. Speech seemed beyond me. All I wanted was to burrow my way into the bed and somehow temporarily cease to exist.

"It's market day, Jackdaw. Not in the mood to charm a few purses out of their pockets and into ours?" He put his hands on his hips, frowning. "That's not like you. I do hope you're not sick." He placed his hand on my forehead, and I knocked it away, regretted it instantly the moment I moved.

"You're not funny." I rolled onto my back in the hopes that would help me feel better. It didn't. "I think there's a troll taking a shit in my skull."

And, by the mercy of the Nine Divines, he took pity on me, even after I'd kept him up all night with my moaning and groaning and general state of wretched misery.

Miaran really had put him in a good mood.

"I'll stop in at the alchemist," he said. "See if I can't filch you something." He nudged the reeking bucket with his foot. "But you have to empty the puke bucket."

"I will. I will."

I slept for another couple of hours, woke to retch once more into the bucket, then crawled back into bed. When I woke again, the nausea had mostly eased off, and the knot in my stomach was now one of cautious hunger. I crawled out of bed, and pulled a fresh set of clothes over my not-so-fresh body. And if you're never experienced the joys of hauling a bucket of cold congealed sick down a rickety step ladder while still weak and suffering from a hangover, with your body not entirely convinced it's done throwing up, then you've never lived.

I dragged the bucket outside to the sewer pipe. Dumped it out, my stomach twisting. Then I moved to the water pipe, and scooped up a handful of water to splash my face and rinse out the foul taste in my mouth.

An hour later, after a snatched lunch of a deep-fried pancake stuffed with spiced chicken and a cinnamon-flavoured sweet-roll, I found myself at Sakeepa's, sweating the hangover out of my system in the steam room and promising myself I was never going to drink again.

And I swear I meant it.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. All comments are appreciated, including constructive criticism. Thank you for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve**

" _They settled into Riften for the winter, taking a cheap room in the slums. Barenziah joined the Thieves' Guild, knowing there would be trouble if she were caught freelancing. One day in the barroom she caught the eye of a known member of the guild, a bold young Khajiit named Therris. She offered to bed with him if he would sponsor her for membership. He looked her over, grinning, and agreed, but said she'd still have to pass a test._

 _"What sort of test?"_

 _"Ah," Therris said. "Payment first, sweet thing.""_

– _The Real Barenziah_ , by Anonymous

Winter isn't a time for thieves. People retreat into their homes, making burglary harder. The grit crunching underfoot makes silent movement virtually impossible, and cold numbed fingers are conducive to picking neither locks nor pockets. And that winter, my first in the City and the Guild, was a hard one, the worst winter in close to fifty years, the snow fall so heavy we might as well have been in Skyrim.

Min found us a place to stay, cheaper than the inn and far more pleasant, sharing a shack on the Waterfront with Jobasha. It was cramped and really far too small for three young men (well, two men and one betmer), but when I saw the three single beds I could have kissed them both.

Jobasha's mother had been a slave in Morrowind, and he'd been born into slavery himself. He'd been a child when the abolitionist movement known as the Twin Lamps had smuggled him out, and he'd kept his shackles as a mark of what he had once been, and of how others continued to suffer. He wasn't the most dedicated thief and he didn't give two shits about the guild – his aim was to save enough money to allow him to return to Morrowind to aid the abolitionists in any way he could – but there was no finer fence for rare books in all of Cyrodiil.

He took it upon himself to finish the task of teaching me to read, and while Calvus had struggled to capture my flighty attention, Jobasha had two things the old man lacked: a rare unexpurgated copy of _The Real Barenziah_ , and the sense to dangle it like a carrot whenever my concentration wandered. It worked, although from that book I learned far more than I ever wanted to know about male Khajiit anatomy.

We had no fire in the shack, and at night burrowed ourselves beneath the blankets piled high on our beds, two sets of teeth rattling as we shivered ourselves to sleep, woke to find the piss-pots beneath our beds frozen over. And in the mornings we cheered ourselves up by competing to see who could fling their disks of icy piss the furthest over the Rumare, which for the first time in over a decade had frozen solid. Jobasha, the furry bastard, was absolutely fine, but that didn't stop him complaining about the cold.

No surprise, perhaps, that I chose to spend as much spare time as I could in the bath house, scrounging jobs from Sam, flirting with Claudine and the other attendants, and enjoying the warmth for as long as I could until they turfed me out.

It was the perfect opportunity to hone and practice my accent. I always had been a natural mimic, and whether consciously or unconsciously, I began to pick up the phrasing and rhythms of a Heartland native, smoothing away my Nibonean vowels and slang bit by bit, until they only bled through when I was drunk or angry.

Until the casual observer might assume I had spent all my life in the Imperial City.

I may or may not have been hoping for a repetition of what happened with Claudine. I won't say I never slept with her again – as a young man I was cheerfully promiscuous and, as any thief knows, practice makes perfect – but any romantic dreams I may have had were dashed the next time I saw her with Killein, his arm slung around her shoulder. And maybe I could have misconstrued that as brotherly affection, but the kiss he gave her when he saw me looking, and the way he slipped his hand inside her dress made that tricky.

I tried to think myself heartbroken and found I couldn't quite manage it. It's a rare man who has his heart broken by the first woman he sleeps with, and so I pursued her as a friend instead.

As for the Thieves' Guild, had I imagined it as an organisation of like-minded brothers, I soon learned it was nothing of the kind. Jobasha should have been my first clue.

The reputation Khajiits have is mostly bullshit. Khajiits are no more inherently deceitful than any other race. But there's no doubt that they do make damn fine thieves. Their ability to see well in the dark and to slip silently from shadow to shadow are talents any thief would long to possess. They should have been valued members of the guild, and instead, whether deliberately or not, they were excluded.

The guild was fractured.

Min's little band, of which Armande and I quickly became part, was one of many ragged groups, loosely banded together beneath the shelter of the guild's tattered umbrella. Sometimes the groups cooperated with one other, but more often than not they conducted quiet little wars of attrition from the shadows. Bloodless, for the most part – the rules of the guild carried weight – but not always. It reminded me a lot of Bravil, how the different gangs of children would vie with each other for the best scores.

Here there might be more to go around, but it was still chaos.

~o~O~o~

Winter slid inexorably towards spring. The first sign of the thaw was the early season's bulbs sprouting up through earth I would have sworn was still frozen. Gradually the winter released its numbing grip on the world, until the weather could almost have been described as warm. Until the trees in the Elven Gardens district were a riot of colour, pink and amber and glistening white, and every shivering breeze would bring a cascade of blossom tumbling down and the air would fill with sweetly scented perfume.

Our piss-pots might be frozen over most mornings, but there were occasional days warm enough to spend a few hours lounging in the Gardens, with the crisp early spring sunlight filtering through the leaves, the ground dappled with light and shadow and the scent of newly-blossoming life all around. Alone with Min, perhaps, or with a girl in my arms, laughing as I plucked a petal from her hair, let the breeze catch it and whip it away.

~o~O~o~

The city came to life on market days. Armande was right: it was my favourite day of the week, and not only because it was the easiest time for an honest thief to ply a living, even in the dead of winter.

It was the market itself I loved, the spectacle of the performers who gathered to keep the crowd entertained, the stalls selling every kind of food imaginable, as well as every kind of drink. And the wares, not just the staid everyday stuff of most markets, but more unusual and esoteric goods, the like of which I'd never seen.

Bolts of glimmering silk, shot through with iridescent colours which seemed to shimmer and chime with the slightest breeze, a stall selling every kind of rare alchemical ingredient, from giants' toes to gnarled little twists of cartilage that the stall-holder claimed belonged to Snow Elves. How that could be, I haven't a clue, since as far as I knew the Snow Elves were all as dead and gone as the Dwemer, but he only glowered at me darkly until I moved on. Seemed like every time I visited I saw something new, something I wanted, covetous little fucker that I was.

I kept a small knife concealed in my sleeve, the blade nestled in my palm. A slip of my hand, and a purse would drop like a plum into my cupped hand, sweet and ripe as you like. Easy to do in the jostle of the market, easy to do without looking if you've been doing this as long as I had.

The market was starting to wind down. This was the best part of the day, when the traders were distracted with packing up, and it was easy to snatch up any unsold goods left unattended for a second or too. People were lingering to watch the entertainment and settle in for a hard night's drinking and merriment. Time enough for a cheerful young thief to take his fill both of the refreshments available and the entertainment – one of the tumblers, I was pretty certain, had been giving me the eye. And what of it if I also happened to take advantage of any plump little plums that might happen to present themselves? I was an opportunist, after all, and not just with women.

I was skirting around a group of mercenaries from the Fighter's Guild outside The Feed Bag, swigging ale and making off-colour remarks about the female tumblers, when a child of about six ran full-tilt into my legs. I caught her, steadied her, saw her pale sly face flash up at me, and I _knew_.

I sensed rather than felt the tug at my pocket. My hand snapped down, closed around a bony wrist. The girl wrenched away and vanished in the crowd, but the boy whose wrist I'd grabbed wasn't quite so lucky.

"Let go of me." He aimed a kick at my shins, but I was wise to the little shit now and easily dodged.

A passing guard glanced curiously at us, his gaze darting from the well-dressed young man in burgundy velvet to the ragged boy in my grip. "Everything all right here, citizen?" He seemed uncertain which of us he should be directing the remark to.

"Of course," I said, smoothly. His eyes flicked to the boy glaring sullenly up at him, and then he decided it just wasn't worth his while and moved on.

I tugged the boy to a quieter spot at the edge of the market, and let him go, keeping him hemmed in so he couldn't bolt. "You're better than you used to be," I said. "Not by much though."

(Mind you, if I hadn't been picking pockets since I was young enough to covet, I doubt I would have noticed.)

He opened his mouth to swear at me, but I held out my hand and his gaze darted unwillingly down to the ring nestled on my palm. It was a plain little thing. Nothing special. Hammered bronze with a flawed sapphire. The sort of trinket you'd think twice about traipsing back for if you dropped it in the street. A fence wouldn't have paid more than ten Septims for it, and that was only if he thought you a likely bet for the future. This boy wouldn't have got five.

His hand pressed against his pocket. "How did you–"

"I told you, I'm good. Better than you, at any rate. Here." I tried to give it back, and he jerked his hand away, stuck it behind his back. A sick feeling twisted in my gut. Anyone looking at us would have seen a fearful beggar-boy cowering away from a well-off man. I eased back, and glanced around guiltily in case we'd been spotted. "What's wrong?"

"I know who you are," he said. "You're guild."

"So what if I am? I'm not going to take it from you. It's yours. You earned it."

"Only the guild's meant to steal things from the market. I ain't guild."

I shouldn't have let it take me by surprise. At that time the rules were really little more than guidelines, sketchily regulated and generally considered optional. "Someone in the guild been taking things from you?"

He didn't answer, his shoulders hunching. I gripped his arm again, felt through the thin rough linen of his shirt how thin he was, little more than skin and bones. He flinched, too weak to pull out of my grip, and I took a closer look. Saw the yellowed whites of his eyes, the sore at the corner of his lips. And how he flinched at my touch, at my every movement.

He was terrified of me.

And still I forced him to look at me.

"What's your name?"

"Nico," he said, and even that had to be squeezed out of him. But he was good, I had to give him that; he kept his hate well-hidden.

"Nico." I nodded, wanting to let go of his arm but I knew he'd bolt if I did. "Has someone been stealing from you?"

"Ain't properly stealing if you're not in the guild," he muttered, scuffing his foot on the ground.

"Just once, or...?"

He lifted his gaze to mine. _That's a stupid fucking question_ , those eyes said.

"Tell me their name. Or names."

His eyes hardened, and I knew he wasn't going to say a godsdamned thing. Not here, anyway, and not now, and certainly not to me. I tugged down the loose collar of his shirt. There was a livid bruise on his collarbone, where someone considerably less gentle than me had gripped him, and my lips tightened.

I tucked the ring back in his pocket. "If you change your mind," I said, "I live on the Waterfront. You come and see me. Me and my friends, we might be able to help."

A last lingering flash of suspicion in his eyes, and then he fled.

I watched the tumblers for a bit, plucked a few low-hanging purses, but my heart wasn't in it. Even the tumbler's contortions weren't enough to distract me, and I was starting to think about making my way back home when the boy made his reappearance. He was nervous at first, like a deer who knew the predator was close, but didn't know quite where. I cast a reluctant glance at the tumbler – clearly it wasn't going to be her lucky night – and slid through the crowd to a quieter spot where I could watch him work the crowd without seeing me.

When Nico tensed I thought that he might have spotted me, but it was another figure he'd seen: a man in his late twenties with reddish-brown hair, stockily-built and dressed in Colovian clothes, plain and simply cut and no doubt hideously expensive. He was smiling and might have seemed friendly enough as he beckoned the boy over, but even from this distance I would see how sharp his eyes were. He was flanked by two men who had the look of hired thugs, each the sort who could chew iron ore and spit out nails. The bigger one I'd seen around the bath house, so all three were almost certainly guild.

From the set of Nico's shoulders, he was thinking about running, but then he ducked his head, a defeated submissive gesture that made me clench my fists. I slowly unclenched them as he slumped reluctantly through the crowd towards the three men. The red-haired man placed his hand on Nico's back, said something, still smiling. The boy gave a tight little shake of his head, and they all vanished down a side street.

And I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding.

 _Son-of-a-whore._

~o~O~o~

I returned to the Waterfront to find our shack empty. I stashed the day's takings away in the lockbox beneath the bed, and sank down, the frame creaking beneath my weight. I tried to read for a bit by the light of one of the beeswax candles Jobasha insisted on, but my eyes skipped over the text. I'd go whole pages before I realised I'd barely taken in a single word. My mind kept playing on the man I'd seen, and on Nico and the helpless hopeless way his shoulders had slumped. Like he'd had no other choice. (And it may also have played a little on the tumbler, but only the tiniest bit, I swear).

I'd almost given up on the book and was thinking about switching to something infinitely filthier and less tedious by the time Min and Armande returned. They were working on some job Min had set up that involved crossing the Rumare on a wherry and which required someone who wouldn't spend the whole short trip puking into the lake as I was wont to do.

Min flung himself down on Jobasha's bed and groaned, stretching out his limbs. "Where's Jobasha?"

"The Imperial Library." I snapped the book shut, stared at the grain on the leather cover for a moment or two. I could feel Armande watching me, waiting for me to speak. One glance at me and he'd known something was up. "Min, do you know a thief with red-brown hair. He's Imperial, I think, but almost looks like a small Nord. Kind of stocky, dresses like a Colovian. Got the sort of face that you want to smack..."

Min grinned. "Bit like yours then?"

"I'm serious."

"Oh, well if you're _serious_." He sat up and shrugged. "Sounds like it could be Varian Ketran. He doesn't go to the baths much. His father's an impoverished minor nobleman of some kind, with enough sons already to make the arsehole effectively obsolete."

"But he is guild?" I persisted.

"Of course he's guild. Spends most of his time in The Rat." The Rat in Darkness was a rough little tavern on the outskirts of the Arena, and after the bath house it was the main gathering place for thieves in the Imperial City. Min frowned at me. "Why?"

"Ain't important." My fingers tapped a restless tattoo on the book. "I think I might go out for a bit. Stretch my legs."

They shared a look as I started to my feet. "Where in Oblivion are you going?" Min asked, and Armande stared at me, grim-faced.

"I think I can guess," he said, and moved between me and the door.

I raised my eyebrows. "Seriously? You can't stop me from leaving."

"I don't know," Min said. "I think both of us together probably could. We could tie you to the bed if we needed to." A flash of his white teeth. "I'm good with knots, and I hear Armande's father was a sailor and his mother a whore, so he's good with knots _and_ beds."

"You–"Armande took a swipe at him, while Min dodged back, laughing.

"The issue at hand, Armande. The issue at hand."

"Damn fucking elves," Armande muttered, but he was grinning, despite himself. Min had grown on him. A bit.

"It isn't important," I said. "You don't want to get involved with this, Armande. Trust me."

"Just tell us," he said. "What the hell are you going to do?"

A long moment passed. I stared up at him, then at the door, calculating my chances and how likely it was that he'd actually stop me. Then I sighed, conceding. "I don't think I'm going to do anything," I said. "Not yet anyway. I just want to speak to him, that's all."

"No," Min said. "You want to stay as far away from that fucker as possible. Noble-born he might be, but he's a thug, and those two brutes of his are vicious. Sam's had all sorts of trouble from him over the years. Too much blood-money, unwillingly paid. Whatever you're going to do, it's a bad idea."

Armande lifted his hand, stilling him. "Just tell us why, Jack."

I hesitated, then told them what I'd seen in the marketplace. About the boy and how frightened he'd been of me. How I'd seen Varian speak to him and lead him away. I didn't mention the bruise on the boy's collarbone, or the way he'd flinched at my touch. Or the hard ball of rage that had been growing in my chest since, a tangle of ugly and confused emotions all knotted around long-ago memories. Memories I'd thought had long since stopped mattering. I'd been wrong.

Min frowned, lounging against the wall. "How old was the boy?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe twelve? He could have been older though. He had that sharp-eyed starving look about him, like he never quite gets enough to eat."

"A tragedy," Min said, "Truly. But either way he's too young to be guild."

"So what?"

"So he's not one of us, Jack. I'm not saying I like it, but Varian's well within his rights. Anyone who's not in the guild is fair game." And it was the casualness of his voice, how he almost sounded amused, that made the knot of fury in my chest unravel.

My fists clenched. "Stealing from a half-starved _child_ is fair game?"

Min flinched at the quietly suppressed rage in my voice. He took a step backwards, glanced at Armande for support, but none would ever be forthcoming from that quarter.

I exhaled, held up my hands in apology. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. Look, I'm going out. But you two stay here."

"Yeah, bugger that." Armande said. "Someone's got to pick up the pieces."

"I really am just going to talk to him," I told them, but from the looks on their faces they didn't believe it any more than I did.

~o~O~o~

From the outside, the Rat in Darkness looked like an unwelcoming sort of place, a hole in the wall in an alley stinking of piss, the wall on one side splattered with vomit. Rough-worn steps led down into a half-submerged room, dimly lit by slitted windows at gutter level, through which could be seen feet walking past, the occasional swirl of a woman's mud-encrusted skirts. It reeked of the lingering smell of tobacco and of rushes that hadn't been changed in weeks. Spilled ale and plenty of it, and the smell of too many people with questionable morals and hygiene crammed into too small a place.

The low murmur eased as we entered, then picked up again when it became clear we were known. I recognised more than a few faces myself, and Min paused to greet a friend, a slender Altmer woman in black robes who cupped his cheek and murmured something in his ear.

And Varian was there, sitting at a table with one of his thugs, the other squinting in concentration as he returned from the bar with three tankards of ale.

Armande gripped my upper arm, and pulled me close. "This is a bad idea," he muttered in my ear.

"What is?"

"Whatever in Oblivion it is you're going to to."

"I told you–"

"What? You're just going to talk to him? Yeah, you're full of shit." He set his hand on my shoulder, trying to push me towards a nearby table. I pulled away, and crossed to a table closer to Varian. None of them looked up.

It was never going to end well. Not with the amount I drank, and the way I was drinking, as if enough ale could douse the bitter flame of my fury. I watched Varian over the rim of my tankard, glaring at him until Armande kicked me under the table, hard enough to make me snap my gaze to him.

" _What_?"

He didn't answer, just gave a weary little shake of his head. And my gaze was dragged inexorably back to Varian's table, where a couple of women had joined them. Whores, probably, but both of them pretty and young, with the roses still fresh in their cheeks. Varian laughed. It was a rich sound, the easy laughter of a man who'd known nothing but roses all his life, and I curled my hand so tight around my tankard my knuckles ached. I slammed it down.

Varian was grinning now, hooking his arm around the prettiest whore's waist, pulling her towards him. I saw him offer something to her, a ring drawn from his pocket, nestling on the palm of his hand. She tilted her head, eyebrows rising, shot him a look of indulgent amusement, and even had I been halfway across the room I think I would have recognised it as the one I'd stolen from Nico's pocket. Not much. Nothing special. Except for a boy like Nico, for whom it might mean the difference between a hot meal that night and going hungry.

For a more practised thief like Varian it might do for a trinket to help him charm a whore.

I was on my feet before I even knew what I was doing. Snatched up my tankard before Armande could wrench me back. Varian never saw me coming. Warm beer spilled over my fingers as I swung the tankard hard into his face, shattering his nose and knocking him from his chair. The girl stumbled backwards, shrieking, and the room half-rose around me. I kicked his chair out of the way as Varian scrambled to his feet, drawing the dagger from his belt. I was on him before he could get to his feet, slamming the tankard into his face twice.

It was fast and dirty. In my experience, the best fights often are. The faster and the dirtier a fight is the less chance I have of being overwhelmed. I'd taken him by surprise with the tankard, but he slashed out with his dagger, the blade slicing into the meat of my forearm. A stinging sensation that blossomed into eyewatering agony.

I clamped his dagger arm beneath my arm, and wrenched my body around to pull him off balance. I jabbed my fingers into his neck. He stumbled back, clutching at his throat with a choking sound, and I brought the tankard down onto his temple, dropping him to his knees. And then I was on him, punching him again and again, until my knuckles felt like they'd been shattered, until he was a bloody-faced mess.

"Help me you fools," he screamed.

His thugs started forward to drag me off him, but Armande gave a shrill whistle. He and Min both had their weapons drawn, and the Altmer woman was crouched, her robes rolled up to the elbows and her arms wreathed in crackling blue flame.

"Yeah," Min said, smiling. "I wouldn't."

They glanced back at their prone leader, and then back at me. What they saw I cannot say, but uncertainty flickered across their faces. I've heard the stories since, the whispered rumours that ran through the Imperial City and beyond, the tales that grew in the telling, until they were more lies than truth, and all the more true despite that: how no expression showed on my face except an eerie sort of calm, or how I was laughing as I beat his face to a pulp and damn near killed him.

Exaggerations all. Sort of.

They sheathed their weapons, and the tension in the room eased.

I'd won. Everyone knew it except for Varian.

"You're dead," he spat up at me. "You're a dead man."

I reached again for the tankard. It slammed once, twice, three times, into Varian's face, until his nose crunched, until he was no longer snarling but weeping and begging for mercy, bubbles of blood popping at his shattered mess of a nose. And then I flung it aside, and brought my dagger to his throat.

"Shut up and listen," I said.

Only one of his eyes was visible, the other hidden by a swelling. It flared open, the whites showing.

"That ring," I continued. My lips twisted into an approximation of a smile. My heart was hammering, but all my fear had been stripped away, and all I felt was a wild glorious rage. "Where'd you get it from?"

"The... the what?"

I raised my head, swept my gaze around the room until I spotted the whore. White-faced and shaking, she clutched something to her chest. I beckoned her closer, and she gave a tight-lipped shake of her head. Terrified. Gods, she was terrified. I met Armande's grim expression, and he whispered in her ear. She darted a glance at him, but was barely able to take her eyes off me. He gave a reassuring nod and pushed her forwards.

She held out a trembling hand, the ring in her fingers. "I... I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't... I didn't know it was yours."

Varian's eyes rolled towards her, then back to me. I shifted my position, keeping the dagger against his throat as I took the ring from her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. She stumbled away, shoving her way into the crowd. I brought the ring closer to Varian's one visible eye.

"This ring," I said. "Where'd you get it from?"

"I stole it. Where the fuck do you think I got it from?"

"Who'd you steal it from?"

"A nobleman–" The dagger pricked harder, nicked his throat. He gave a high cry of pain, and the sharp smell of urine filled the air. Someone in the silent watching crowd gave a snort of derisive laughter. "The market!" Varian shrieked. "One of the pickpockets there. One of the gang that works the crowds."

"A child."

He flicked his gaze towards me, too terrified to understand. I pricked the dagger harder, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yes, yes," he gabbled. "A child. A _boy_."

"You make them steal for you. Hurt them if they don't get enough?"

" _Yes_."

I exhaled. My rage was starting to slip away. I took in his face, the bubbles of blood at his shattered nose, the wreckage of his face. The white, terrified face of the whore. My arm throbbed where he'd cut me, and I could hear his breathing, how it rasped in his chest, shallow with panic. And how right the dagger felt in my hand, how easy it would be to–

I flung the dagger aside, curled my hands in his shirt instead. "You leave the boy alone. You want to steal, do it yourself." I jerked him up and slammed him down, knocking the back of his head against the ground. The rushes cushioned the blow. "You don't make children steal for you, understand?"

"Yes." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes, I understand." And then he was sobbing, shuddering beneath me. "I'm sorry. Oh gods, please don't... I'm _sorry_."

I let go, stumbled to my feet and stepped away from him. He rolled onto his side, a dark stain at his crotch where he'd pissed himself. The crowd eased away, avoiding looking at me; only a few cautious glances were cast my way before they settled back at their tables. They kept their heads down as I weaved to the bar.

"I'll pay for any damage," I told the innkeeper, with only the faintest tremor in my voice. He gave me a cautious nod. No harm done. Not like it was the first time there'd been a fight in the Rat, although seldom one quite so brutal. And then I turned, found Min and Armande staring at me like they'd never seen me before in their lives.

Like I was a stranger.

~o~O~o~

They came for me in the night, as I'd known they would. Min, with two guild enforcers. One was Argonian, with a scar on his jaw where his scales had been ripped away, the other a grizzled Imperial man, with graying hair and colourless eyes. His hard expression suggested he'd been killing people since we'd been at our mothers' tits and I was just the latest in a long line of people he'd ushered to their graves.

They hammered on the door, loud enough to wake the whole of the Waterfront, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep, even if I hadn't been certain they were coming. The numbing salve Jobasha had spread on the knife-wound was wearing off.

I sat up in bed as the door slammed open, the lock shattering. Armande swore, about to spring out of his bed, but froze when he saw Min stepping inside, his expression apologetic and fearful. The enforcers came in after him, crammed in the doorway of the shack like giants. The Imperial carried a cudgel. No sign the Argonian was armed, but chances were he didn't need to be.

"You've been summoned, Jack. Sam Bantien wants to see you," Min said. He swallowed. "I'm sorry, I did all I could."

"Fuck." I closed my eyes, and sank back on the bed, wishing I'd been able to grab an hour or two of sleep before this moment came. " _Fuck_."

"We can–" Armande started.

"No." I shook my head, and forced my eyes open. I made an attempt at a reassuring smile, but felt instead like crying. I'd fought so hard to come here, to finally feel like I had a place in the world, somewhere I could belong, and now I'd gone and lost it all. Because the rage had seared through me and all I'd been able to think about was a bruise on a boy's collarbone and an arm tight around my throat. "It's fine, Armande. I knew it was coming. I deserve this. I'll deal with it."

And still his hands clenched on the blanket as I climbed out of bed, dressed in nothing but a pair of braies. The Imperial's gaze shifted to the ugly scar at my waist, then up to my face, where they lingered thoughtfully.

"That's him?" the Argonian muttered. "He's the one fucked Varian over like that?"

"It's not as impressive as it sounds," I said, tugging a shirt on. "He was very drunk. Where are we supposed to be going?"

"The Garden," Min said. "Gods only know why it's called that because nothing ever grows there. It's a patch of wasteland on the outskirts of the Waterfront District. It's... it's where a lot of official business of a specific kind is done. Punishments, that sort of thing."

 _Punishments_. Well, this was sounding better and better.

 _I had to do it,_ I thought, and tried to tell myself it wasn't a lie.

"What's Sam going to do to me?" I asked as I climbed out of bed, and I couldn't keep the tremble from my voice. The Argonian and the Imperial were both impassive, but Min looked miserable. His eyes met mine, flitted away.

Maybe I had killed him and just didn't realise it. Some kind of internal injury, worse than I'd realised. Gods, what did the Thieves' Guild do to those who killed their own? Justice in the guild would be swift and merciless; it had to be.

"I don't know," Min said. "If I knew, I swear I'd tell you. Look, Sam's okay. He's tough, but he's fair, and he won't–"

"Fuck this. I'm coming too." Armande scrambled out of bed, grabbing for his clothes. The enforcers shifted.

"Just the boy," the Imperial said, his voice even. There was threat in his posture, but I was sure I hadn't imagined the faintest glint of sympathy in his eyes. Gods, if even the enforcers felt sorry for me, I truly was fucked.

I turned towards Armande, lowered my voice. "Stay here, Armande," I said, and then when he looked like he was about to argue, " _Please_. This is my problem to fix, not yours." I turned towards the enforcers. "They didn't have nothing to do with it, you hear me? It was all me."

The Imperial shrugged, as if he really didn't give a shit whose fault this was or who got to know their entrails in intimate detail because of it.

Armande pressed his lips together, stared at me for a moment, then made a soft disgusted little sound. "Can't this wait?" he asked the Imperial. "He's hurt."

"It's fine," I told them, binding back my hair. If I was going to die, I was damned if I was going to do it with my hair loose like an unmarried girl's. "I'm going to be fine."

I tried desperately to sound like I wasn't lying through my teeth. I'm not quite sure I succeeded.

~o~O~o~

A low mist had risen off the Rumare, drifting in clammy wreaths around the makeshift buildings. With the sky overcast, the shanty town was in almost complete darkness. They took me down a side-alley I'd never been down before, skirting the edge of the wall, where beggars huddled in shadowed alcoves. They were the only sign of life other than me and the two enforcers. The Garden was a patch of scrubland at the very edge of the shanty town, bordered by a crumbling stone wall with a gap where a gate must once have hung. Beyond the wall torch light glowed through the mist.

My breath caught in my throat, and my boots felt heavy as lead, pinning me to the ground. The mist clung to me, cold fingers trailing across my neck, and in the garden, the shadows seemed to flock like ravens, gathering at the outskirts of the circle of light.

The Imperial turned to me, and for the first time his eyes had softened, He rested his hand on my shoulder. "Go in, lad."

I stared mutely at him. Wanted to beg him to let me run, but knew it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. I drew a breath, then stepped over the threshold into the Garden, moving towards the torch. The long grass was up to my knees, dampening my braies with dew. Shapes loomed around me, veiled with ivy, and I had the feeling that this might have been somewhere once. Beneath the trailing ivy, I could see the remnants of statues, faces and features worn smooth by the years.

Sam Bantien was waiting for me. He wore his black hair tied back like mine, and his eyes were grave. Varian was there as well, and now that my rage had been assuaged, leaving me with nothing but trembling fear, I saw what the Argonian had meant. Even cleaned up, Varian's face was a mess.

Sam sighed. "Jackdaw of Bravil."

I inclined my head. "Master Bantien. I almost didn't recognise you with your clothes on." Then I paused, running what I'd just said through my mind. "Actually that... that didn't come out right."

 _Godsdamn it, idiot, shut up._

Sam gave no reaction, other than a shake of his head. "I knew you'd be trouble," he said. "Right from the moment I saw you. Varian here has had a lot to say about you. How you attacked him, viciously and without provocation."

He spoke wearily, as if this were a mere trifling matter and he longed only to get it over with and crawl back into bed beside whatever warm welcoming body he slept alongside.

"That's not..." I hesitated. "Well, yeah, that's completely true."

"But I'm sure you had your reasons. He said you threatened to kill him."

"Now that isn't true," I said. "I never said nothing about killing him."

"I rather gather that the threat was implied. His nose and jaw both broken, and the temple says he'll likely lose the sight in his right eye."

I darted a startled guilty look at Varian, whose one visible eye burned with hatred.

"And he says you stole something from him, Jack. Is that true?"

Varian gave a smile of contempt that made any guilt I might have felt evaporate. My hands itched for another pewter tankard.

"I... It's not–"

"Is it true?" Sam Bantien's voice snapped with power.

"It's true," I said. Varian's eyes narrowed in triumph.

Sam gave a slow nod, drew his hand down over his mouth, considering. "Why?"

"I meant to return it to the boy he stole it from. Another thief–"

"Who's not in the guild," Varian burst out. "I was well within my rights–"

Rage made me clench my fists. "He was a fucking _child_ , you coward."

"'Coward'? You're the cunting coward. Couldn't beat me in a fair fight, could you, so you had to sneak up on me when I was in my cups?"

"Why don't you fucking try me?"

" _Enough!_ " Sam launched himself from the wall, and elbowed roughly between us. "I've heard enough. Talos preserve us, no wonder the guild's in such a state when we fight amongst ourselves in such a way." He stabbed his finger into Varian's chest, his voice lowering to a warning growl. "Get. Back. Now."

Varian glared at me, then turned his back. The muscles in his neck bunched like gathered rope, and he was breathing hard. I grinned at him, wild, savage.

Sam turned to me, and my grin melted like snow in spring.

"The rules of the guild are very clear, Jack. You don't steal from fellow thieves, by which we mean members of the guild, not unaffiliated street-brats." A hiss of triumph from Varian. "So you have a choice. Either you are expelled from the guild..." Sam paused, and a pall of cold despair settled in my heart at the thought of losing my place in the guild. Gods, what would I do? I might actually have to get a proper job. "...or you make restitution."

"What would..." I swallowed. "What would restitution entail?"

"Well, that depends on the individual case and the judgement of your Doyen. In this case, I think... twice the fenceable value of the item you stole should be fair, don't you?"

I blinked, certain that I'd heard wrong. Because that made no sense at all. "Twice the... But that... _What_?"

"I've spoken to Minelcar at length, and I agree with his estimate of the value of the ring in question at twelve Septims. So, shall we say twenty-four? Can you afford that price, Jackdaw?"

I stared at him for what seemed like ages before I realised he was actually waiting for a reply. "Let's... let's make it twenty-five. I'm feeling generous."

The faintest shadow of a smile crossed my Doyen's face. "See to it," he said, with a curt nod. "And in the meantime you raise an interesting point about the variance between the spirit and the letter of the law." He glanced briefly up towards the wall as if someone else was watching. Nothing I could see but shadows.

Varian stared at the two of us, and if I had been momentarily speechless, he appeared to have been struck dumb.

"The street-rats who work the markets and the alleys are for the most part too young to join the guild. In the past, perhaps, this means they've fallen outside its protection." Outside the edge of the circle of firelight cast by the torch the shadows and drifting mist lingered. There was the sense of something watching. "It has been decided that the protection of the guild should be extended to all the child-thieves of Cyrodiil, future thieves and guild members all." He tilted his head, not quite looking at Varian, but this was obviously directed at him. "Anyone who steals from them, who hurts or injures them in any way, will be answerable to the guild and risk expulsion or even banishment. Is that clear?"

Varian muttered something unintelligible, glaring at me.

Sam nodded. "Then go, Varian. I'll see you get your restitution." I started to turn, but Sam stayed me with a twitch of his hand. "Not you," he said, sharply. "You stay, Jackdaw of Bravil. Our business is not yet done."

Varian's shoulders stiffened. His eyes met mine as he left, lips pressed together in incoherent fury, and his shoulder slammed into mine, hard enough to stagger me a few steps. I was so baffled I didn't even care.

Sam was watching me. "You've made an enemy there, Jack."

"I'm not afraid of him."

He grunted. "I wouldn't have said you were the stupid type."

"Guess I'm full of surprises."

And he managed to surprise me, letting out a bark of sudden laughter. "I reckon that's the first true thing you've said in all the time I've known you. You're a curious man."

I stared at him, thinking there was something very strange about being called a man. Disconcerting, almost. I'd been waiting for the time when I felt like I'd grown up. I'd killed a man, had already sampled more than my share of women, and still felt like a boy who didn't know what the fuck he was doing. Sam Bantien had fetched a bottle of brandy from inside something that might once have been a fountain, and was pouring me a glass of brandy. And even though he was smiling, all I could think was that I was in more danger than I'd ever been in in my life before: that I should run away and keep on running, not stop until I was as far from the Imperial City as it was possible to get.

"The first time I saw you," Sam continued, handing me the glass, "I would've taken you for a Nibenese farmer's son. Now you sound like an Imperial City native. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn you were born here."

"People respond better to this accent. They–"

"Trust you more?" he said, his eyes keen.

I shrugged. "I blend in."

"Yeah, you do, don't you?" He sipped his brandy, his keen eyes flitting over my face.

I shook my head, and knocked back the brandy in one, feeling dazed. "You really aren't kicking me out of the guild?"

"Just the opposite," he said. "How long have you been in the city now, not quite six months? And you're already making something of a name for yourself. So..." He spread his hands. "You're now a Footpad. Congratulations."

"Thank you." I hesitated. "That wasn't the only reason you kept me back, was it?"

He shook his head. "You're right, it wasn't. There's something we've been planning for a while. Something big. We need someone bold, with a knack for accents and a talent for blending in."

"I'm listening. What sort of job?"

"Well, that's the thing. It's not just one job. It's many, and it's something a little more ambitious than your run-of-the-mill fetch job or burglary." He grinned. "We're going to make the guild great again. Interested?"

" _Gods_ , yes."

"Excellent." He took another sip of his brandy, eyes not leaving mine as he tilted his head and raised his voice. "Well?" he called out. "What do you think?"

The lingering feeling that we weren't alone intensified, sharpened to a pinpoint. My head snapped around, and I stared at the wall, at the shadows crawling in the shifting torchlight.

One moment there was nothing there, and the next there _was:_ a living shadow that stepped out of the wall like a bather emerging from the sea. The shadows twisted, forming and reforming like a flock of ravens, the beating of their wings nothing but the sound of the torch flame guttering, the pounding of my heart.

One moment it was a shadow and the next a figure with its face shrouded beneath a strange dark cowl, inscribed with runes that gleamed like spilled ink in the torchlight. And when the figure spoke, its voice was that of a woman, rich and lyrical and strangely familiar.

"He'll do," she said.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing.**

 **Please note that there is some dub-con content in this chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen**

" _A major Oblivion plane is an expression of its Prince's very nature, so to say that each 'craves absolute control' of his or her sphere is inexact, as a desire for 'absolute control' is not central to every Prince's nature. To use the example you chose yourself, Sanguine's Myriad Realms of Revelry is a congeries of pocket and sub-realms, within which Sanguine grants his guests considerable latitude for personal customization, as each mini-realm can be refashioned to meet the needs and desires of its visitants. It is in Sanguine's nature to indulge the natures of others, particularly their darker desires, so to Sanguine, 'absolute control' is anathema_."

– Tutor Riparius, from Lord Fa-Nuit-Hen and Tutor Riparius Answer Your Questions

Picture a young Imperial man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years of age (in fact I was now twenty-one. I always did look younger). In appearance he is slim and wiry, and some (not me, naturally) might describe him as remarkably good-looking. His face is expressive and quick to smile, but his eyes are ever watchful. And while his accent is Colovian, something in the way he draws out his consonants suggests he has recently spent time in Morrowind.

His name is Corvus.

Much of the above, as I'm sure you may have guessed, was an illusion. Over the preceding years, I'd practised my accent and bearing until they felt as natural as breathing. Until I'd almost started to believe that this man really existed – a natural son of a minor Colovian noble family fallen on hard times, one of many that had taken their chances in Vvardenfell when it was opened for settlement. His family had fared better than most. Many hadn't been quite so lucky in the inevitable feeding frenzy, merchants and nobles alike scrabbling and elbowing each other in the ribs in the hope of making themselves and their families rich on that strange island of ash-wastes and giant fleas.

There was a house, a modest affair in Balmora with a couple of servants, who would confirm that Corvus Alviarus did indeed visit in between whatever lickspittle attempts he was making to ingratiate himself with House Hlaalu. No doubt they would describe him with the level of contempt and general loathing that only a Dunmer servant can manage about his or her Imperial master.

The Gray Fox, whatever else he might be, was thorough.

From what I'd heard, my shadow in Morrowind didn't look a bloody thing like me, but then he didn't need to. He was Colovian, with a similar build, and the same colour hair. That was all we really needed. Most Dunmer can't tell the difference between Imperials anyway.

He was a member of the Vvardenfell Thieves' Guild, which had also dealt with the laying down of Corvus's spore: the inevitable forgeries and bribery that ensue when you attempt to conjure up a man from thin air. Favours to be returned with favours. They were as eager to build ties with the Cyrodiil guild as we were to build ties with them. More so in fact, since the seeds of their guild had taken root in hostile soil. The Camonna Tong would have considered it a _delight_ to slit the throats of every last Thieves' Guild member who dared to set foot on Vvardenfell, and they needed every bit of help they could get.

~o~O~o~

I spent my nights reading anything I could get my hands on, books about Dunmer ancestral beliefs, about Vvardenfell and the history of Morrowind, the mushroom houses of the Telvanni wizards. I'd stay up late into the night with Miaran, working on my accent and practising my shaky Dunmeris until Armande got irritated with the pair of us and started slamming around the shack. That was my cue to make my excuses and make myself scarce, while Miaran bid me a laughing farewell, glancing at Armande, her red eyes hooding with desire.

They'd grown close the two of them since that night by the fire at the edge of the Rumare.

I was happy for them, but it was hard to quell the growing feeling of loneliness spreading through me. The next couple of hours or so I'd spend sitting on a rock, gazing across the Rumare to the distant hills, or if the weather was bad, I'd find myself in the brightest lit tavern I could find, trying to read my latest acquisition in peace.

My days I spent picking pockets and running scams and soaking in steam baths, usually at Sakeepa's, but sometimes when I was feeling flush, the opulent bathhouse in the Temple District, where the saltwater pool was inlaid with jewelled tiles and the air was filled with a sweet fragrance that awakened appetites in more ways than one. There was even a pool where men and women could intermingle, swim and flirt to their heart's delight, dressed for modesty's sake in silken garments that, when wet through, clung to every contour and curve.

And I worked, grabbing whatever jobs I could from Sam. Building a name for myself as a bold, daring thief who could think fast and run faster, and who'd take on just about any job, no matter how ill-advised, no matter how dangerous, and for no other reason than the sheer fucking joy of it.

And then there were the women.

I… may have developed something of a reputation. And not just for being a master thief.

~o~O~o~

Technically the loin cloth covered everything.

The statue loomed over the shrine, a flimsy length of cloth hanging down between massive thighs. Glance at it one way, and there was nothing but ripples of cloth. Glance at it another way, and squint a bit and the outline of a vast priapic stone cock could clearly be seen, veins and all. Whatever stonemason had carved that statue, he'd been damn good at his job.

Beside me the little Breton man huffed. "It's a bloody shambles is what it is. That damned Bosmer couldn't arrange a piss-up in a brewery."

There was a gray hazy quality to the day, and a chilled bite to the air. Drizzling rain that would occasionally burst into sudden short-lived showers. What few worshippers there were at the Shrine of Sanguine huddled around the braziers, more gloomy than orgiastic, and mostly grumbling about the weather.

The drunken orgy Min had promised had turned out to be much less fun than I'd been expecting. Not that we were here for the orgy, mind you, although I'll hold my hands up and admit I might have been just the tiniest bit curious.

This was a job. One of the big ones. One that'd earn me, and by extension the guild, honour and glory, and with any luck, more than a bit of coin. That was the theory anyway. Already things weren't quite going to plan. If there's one thing you can rely on as a thief, it's that the weather will always do its best to fuck you over.

Min was laughing at me from where he sat reclined on the benches, his arm slung around the woman he'd befriended, a lovely Altmer who'd grown up in Morrowind. She tipped her head back to let him kiss her neck.

 _Fuck you,_ I mouthed, and he winked at me.

The ground before the shrine had been rather optimistically spread with bedrolls and cushions. They had gone sodden from the constant rain, and a few worshippers sat at the base of the statue, trying to get in the mood of things and mostly failing. Only one of them, an Imperial woman in a dress in the Nibenean style – a length of purple silk, fastened with a golden collar at her throat – seemed there to genuinely worship. She sat with her bare feet tucked beneath her haunches, head tilted back in adoration, and as I watched her, half-heartedly responding to the Breton's tirade with grunts and tuts and 'goodness me's', her gaze flicked towards me, and she brought a crystal goblet filled with wine to her lips.

And even though I was as wet through and miserable as everyone else, my interest prickled. I flashed her an instinctive and involuntary grin and in response she raised an eyebrow, and tilted the goblet towards me. Invitation and offering both.

"A bloody shambles," the Breton said again, glaring at me as if I was personally responsible for the rain. "I mean, look at it. Just look at the weather."

"Do you think Sanguine gives a shit if it's raining?" I asked. He paused, squinted at me, suspicious, opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything I made my excuses and walked away, moving towards the shrine. Towards the woman.

She'd raised her face in adoration towards the statue. A true worshipper, I thought, and shivered, but as I approached, the glance she cast my way was not that of a fervent believer, but cynical and mocking. The soles of her feet were black with mud, and tattoos of swirling dots spiralled up her bare arms.

She crooked her finger, and I knelt down on the damp bedrolls. The smell of wet earth rose up to meet me, and she leaned closer, placing her hand on my chest. "You're not supposed to be here," she whispered.

 _Oh shit._

"Um... Yeah, okay, see the thing is–"

Her hand was sliding up beneath my shirt. "You're not really a worshipper, are you?"

"Well... no." I darted a glance at the rest of the group, and then up, to the statue. From this angle, that loincloth didn't quite conceal as much as I'd thought. "Are you going to tell the others?"

"Do you think I ought to?"

There was a challenge in her voice, the glint of mockery in her eyes. I opened my mouth, hesitated, uncertain what to say, whether or not she was serious or just screwing with me.

"I think I'd prefer it if you didn't," I said.

"Then on reflection I think I won't. And, after all, you do look like a man with a thirst." Her nails scratched against my chest, following the line of my ribs. I stiffened as she found the scar at my waist, and leaned in closer. "Am I right?"

"Gods, yes." My voice was husky. "I've never been so fucking thirsty in my life."

She grinned, and brought the bottle to my lips. Only a few teasing drops at first, and then a flood. I swallowed deeply, until the tide overwhelmed me and I spluttered, coughed out a spray of wine that stained her skin, her dress. She laughed, and took a swallow of wine herself. A dark drop of wine spilled from her lips and traced its way down her throat and the curve of her breast. I watched it, longing to follow it with my tongue.

"You're not the first, you know," she said softly. "Half the fools here don't worship Sanguine in their hearts. Some of have come to watch. Others come to touch." Her lips brushed against my ear. "Why did you come here?"

"I don't know," I lied. "Curiosity, maybe?"

She drew back, and her hand slipping down, her nail following the line of hair down from my belly button. It hooked at the waistband of my trousers, tugged them down, just a fraction, just enough to make me catch my breath.

"It's always curiosity," she said. "Or that's what they tell themselves. In truth it's hunger. For food, for wine, for sex." She took another swig of the wine, but instead of swallowing, she bent close and kissed me, let the wine flow from her mouth into mine.

My hand rose involuntarily to cup her backside. The silk felt like peach-fuzz.

"They laugh about it, the fools," she continued. "As if it's possible to sit at the feet of a Daedric Lord and drink his wine and fuck his women and walk away unscathed. Some of them are too dull for words, and they, _they_ are the ones he allows to walk away."

"I'm incredibly dull," I murmured into her collarbone: I'd found the opening in her dress, the crease between her buttocks and her thigh. "I'm the dullest man who ever lived."

"Mm, and the only reason you came here was because of _curiosity_."

I went still for a moment. My gaze flicked towards the benches, but I couldn't see Min. Far off thunder rumbled in the distance. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I knew I should be politely disengaging. I had work to do after all, but the woman was still talking, and it seemed impolite to ignore her, especially when I had my hand on her backside.

"I can always tell. Who the dull ones are, the ones who will walk away and forget and be forgotten, unless my Prince takes it upon himself to punish them. And then there are the others. The ones who lie, who tell themselves they come only because of lust or curiosity, or for more base reasons–"

A glint in her eye. _She knows,_ I thought, a sudden flare of panic, and then her fingers tugged the waistline of my trousers down another inch, and my panic was almost forgotten.

I caught hold of her wrist. "And what's the truth?"

"They come," she said, "because they can't bear how empty they are inside."

I stared at her, my grip tightening. She only smiled, laughter in her eyes. I had to force myself to loosen my grip. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Sanguine's shadow loomed over us, a fine drizzling rain dampening my cheeks like tears. Goosebumps rippled up her bared arms, echoing the stippled dots of her tattoos. And a voice, rose up inside me, whispering, _You should be running, idiot_.

She tilted her head. "Still thirsty?"

 _No. Gods, no._

Instead I cleared my throat, my voice scratchy and hoarse. "I could drink."

 _What's the worst that can happen?_

She reached, not for the bottle of wine, but for an ancient clay ewer. "This is something different," she said softly. "Something very special. Care to try it?"

"Why the fuck not?"

But instead of pouring me a glass, she lifted the ewer to her own mouth and drank deeply. The wine spilled over her full lips, down the curve of her white throat, soaking into the silk, making it cling to her body, over her breasts. And the hunger, the thirst, couldn't be ignored any more. I roused myself and moved to kiss her throat, to lap and suck the wine from her skin.

The scent of it was dizzying, filling my lungs, and my thirst and my hunger seemed nothing but an echo of the ancient hunger of a watching god.

~o~O~o~

Music was playing. I couldn't place the instrument. It seemed a cross between a harp and a drum and a woman's voice. It was beautiful: eerie and heartbroken and joyous all at once, and echoed the beating of my heart, the pulsing of the blood in my veins. The air tasted of the sweetest wine imaginable, fragranced with lavender and honeysuckle, and underneath a definite hint of sex.

I was in a bathhouse, standing at the edge of a vast pool of turquoise water, the surface broken by a number of islands on which bodies lay entwined. Hidden nooks lined the walls, the occupants not quite concealed by gauzy iridescent curtains that rippled in the scented breeze. There were tables piled high with food and drink of every kind, sweetmeats, roasted peacocks with a spray of feathers fanning out behind them, and the roof was open to a sky like none I'd ever seen before, strange constellations rippling past.

A man was waiting for me. He sat on a cushioned bench, drinking and watching the revellers.

He was a Breton, dark-haired, with eyes red-rimmed from too much alcohol and too many late nights. He lounged back against the cushions, a boot resting on the low table, and he barely glanced up when I cleared my throat.

"Hi. Um... I think I'm lost."

"I'll say. Take a wrong turn?"

"Yeah." I lifted my head, stared at the sky. "Am I still near Skingrad?"

"Not exactly, no."

"Oh. Damn. I must be lost then." And then I looked around again, gaze catching on the bodies on the nearby island. The flash of a thigh, a breast. A hand curving around a fleshy buttock, fingers biting into skin. Lots of fingers. Lots of skin. "I'd say I feel like I've been here before but I'm pretty sure I'd remember this."

"Yeah, it kinda sticks in people's minds." He grinned. "Like a fish hook."

"I don't think I belong here."

"Oh, I don't know if I'd agree with that. I'd say you belong here just fine."

"What do you mean?"

He jerked his head at the cushion beside him. "Sit down. Rest your weary soul. Enjoy the scenery." And that grin again: not pleasant, not friendly, but _hungry_. "Have a drink. It's brandy. Your favourite. Actually, no, I tell a lie, this is _better_ than your favourite. This is the 415 batch, rarer and finer than plucked ant-pizzles, this. Each drop is worth more than a fortune in gold back on Mundus and it's worth it, believe me."

"I've heard about that batch." I felt a tug of longing. "I thought I'd be able to steal some once but it was locked up tighter than a virgin's snatch. Could I really try it–"

"Drink your fill." He gestured to the bench beside him, and I sank down into the cushions. The fabric was a soft rose pink, with the delicate texture of petals. He bared his teeth as me, and handed me a glass of brandy. It was just as fine as I'd expected.

 _Better._

My eyes closed, and I was struck by the thought that I'd never taste anything as fine as this ever again, that it might in fact spoil drinking for me completely. There was almost something almost holy in this moment; it felt like an act of worship.

And he was watching my face, "That's good, huh?"

"It's the _best_. Damn, I wish I'd got my hands on that bottle. I don't think I'd have sold it on even. I'd have kept it and cherished it."

"Nah, I know your sort. You'd have drained the bottle dry before the night was out. Something as precious as this you wouldn't be able to resist. You never have been good at saying no, have you?" And he was pouring me another glass.

"Are you sure? That's got to cost a fortune." I was holding an emperor's ransom in the damp sweating palm of my hand.

"Drink up. There's more than that came from."

"Seriously?"

"Kid, I've got a bottomless supply. And you think that brandy's good? That's horse-piss compared to some of what I've got stashed away. There are some benefits to being me."

I drank, and if anything it was better than before. The warmth of the cushions enveloped me,the soft velvety brush of the fabric a kiss against my skin. The sensation made me think of the woman back at the shrine. How smooth her skin was, how beautiful, and how desperately I wished she was here beside me. I stared up the sky in languid pleasure, thinking it unnatural but shiveringly beautiful. "I'm Jack," I murmured.

"Sam." And he laughed when I stuck up my hand, but he shook it, his grip warm and dry.

"I know a Sam," I said dreamily. "He's a good guy."

"Yeah?" And this Sam kept grinning, brought his own glass to his lips. "I'm _not._ "

I drank, feeling his eyes on me. The cushions seemed to be easing us closer, deliberately, like a child mashing two dolls together. The warm air smelled of musk and the salt-brine stink of sex. The music felt like fingers brushing over my skin, the sound of distant laughter, soft and welcoming.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?" Brandy lapped at my lips like waves along the edge of a sandy beach.

His voice was soft, almost right in my ear. "No. You're not."

"And your name isn't really Sam."

"Nope."

"And I'm nowhere near Skingrad?"

"I'd say that's a definite 'no'."

My eyes snapped open, and I stared at the sky. "Am I in Oblivion?"

There was no answer this time, only his eyes resting on me, and he was shifting closer, no longer bothering with the glass, but bringing the bottle to my lips and pouring, just like the woman had. He flooded me with brandy. So much brandy it seemed almost to crush me into the cushions, and I reached up, intending to push his arm away, and instead I brought the bottle back to my lips. I drank until I'd run out of air, while his soft laughter wrapped around me, until I had no choice but to knock him away before I passed out. I floundered up, gasping like a half-drowned man.

Above the sky spiralled like I was drunk – _you are drunk, idiot_ , I thought, and laughed, pushing my hair back. My body felt like it was melting into the cushions, and when I glanced at him, his smile no longer seemed quite so dangerous.

It was a feeling like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life, certainly nothing like being drunk in the real world. As if the brandy had been spiked with something other than alcohol, and all the colours in the world seemed a little brighter, a little richer, and I could feel the air prickling against my skin, each wrinkle and water droplet in the texture of my clothes, the velvety cushions sweeping across my skin like a tongue.

What would be like to be naked, I wondered, to feel the kiss of the the fabric against every inch of skin, or to plunge into that tangled mess of bodies and find countless hands, lips, on my skin while this man watched?

"You know, I like you, kiddo," he said.

"Thanks."

He leaned closer. "But you were right, you don't belong here."

"What do you mean–"

"Not yet, anyway. You're _hers_ , and while the prospect of fucking with a rival's plans is kinda appealing, I've never really gone in for all that backstabbing bullshit. Not unless it's worth it. And you..." He paused, those reddened eyes studying me. "Eh. I don't know if you are worth it. You're a little raw, and not in a good way."

He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear.

"Come back when you've leavened, kid."

Disappointment prickled at me. "You mean you want me to go."

"Aw, don't get upset. Have some more brandy. Have some ale. Have some skooma. Have whatever you want. Have as much of it as you can flood down that sweet little gullet of yours. And then have some more. You can't stay forever, but that doesn't mean you can't linger for a little while." His skin was darkening, and beneath faint traceries were becoming visible, scarlet tattoos beneath his skin. His features sharpened, and in his hair nubs of bone were forming. He looked less human with every passing moment, and the smell of roses clung to him. "And it doesn't mean we can't have a little fun while you're here."

~o~O~o~

I woke to the crackling of a fire. Felt rough fabric against my cheek, and my right arm, crushed beneath the weight of my body, had gone numb. And for a second when I opened my eyes all I could see was white.

 _Oh holy fucking shit,_ I thought. _I'm in Aetherius._

And then: _Bollocks._

But if I was dead, it seemed a little strange that I should be aching so much. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them again. Something soft brushed my nose, an escaped feather from the pillow. I shifted, turned my head a little to the side, and winced at a stabbing pain of protest from my aching ribs. I set my hands against the bed, and gingerly pushed myself up.

A bedroom. Perhaps a room in an inn, and a passably decent one judging by the fair to middling cleanliness of the bed sheets. I rolled myself up to a sitting position, and swung my legs off the bed. Every muscle was aching and sore, as if I'd been run through a mangler several times by the terrifyingly efficient washerwoman they'd hired to clean the sheets.

I pulled my shirt up with a twinge of protest in my shoulder, and stared numbly at my chest. Every inch of my skin was mottled with bruises, shading from yellow-greenish to fresh and dark and livid. I tried to crane my head to look at my back, but couldn't turn it that far without a wave of dizzy nausea threatening to overwhelm me.

There was a soft little gasp, and I looked around to see Min in the doorway, his gaze fixed on my chest. His skin had gone the colour of one of my oldest bruises.

"What the fuck happened to me?" I demanded.

"You're asking _me_? I was going to ask you the same question." He forced a weak smile. "One minute you were there, and the next you were gone. I thought you'd fucked off with someone until you didn't come back." His gaze dropped to my chest again, and I tugged my shirt down. "Jack, it's been four days."

"What has?"

"You were missing for four days. I was sure you were dead. I was too scared to go home. I thought Armande would murder me for sure."

"He probably would have done."

He gave a bark of laughter, perhaps not realising I wasn't exactly joking. "The Skingrad guard found you wandering the streets naked and drunk out of your skull. You threw up on someone's boot. The amount I had to pay in bribes to get you out of jail…"

I rolled my shoulders as I stood up, wincing. "Was it them kicked the shit out of me?"

"I don't think so. Skingrad isn't Bravil. They're civilised here." He bit his lower lip. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"Bit sore. I might have cracked a rib or two, but I've had worse." I gave an impatient wave of my hand. "Never mind me. I'll live. Did you manage to..."

His eyes gleamed. "What you you think?"

Excitement thrilled through me, my aches forgotten. "Fuck me. Tell me you haven't sold it yet."

He shook his head. "Thought I'd keep it just in case Armande came after me." He crossed to the bed, and knelt, tugged a bundle out from underneath. I lowered myself onto the bed, and held my breath as he unwrapped the package with delicate movements of his hands.

Within lay a staff, bigger than I'd expected (perhaps appropriate given its true master). Its length was a gleaming emerald green, barbed with thorns, and crowned by an exquisite rose, with silken spreading petals, delicate pink with more than a hint of female anatomy about them.

And I couldn't help myself from bouncing on the bed in excitement. "Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking _shit_. Can I touch it?"

"Yes, Jack," Min said, with solemnity. "You may touch my staff."

"You're hilarious." I reached out, brushing my finger against the carved rose, and for a moment something flashed through my skull, and I was touching not carved wood but a woman, heat and wetness, and thighs clamping shut on my hand. I jerked it away. "By the Nine!"

Min traced the stem delicately. "The Nine don't have much to do with this."

"It's so beautiful. I didn't think it would be." And I was itching to touch it again, to curl my fist tight around the shaft, heedless of how sharp the thorns might be. I wanted to make it mine.

Min was watching me, his amusement gone. He wrapped the Rose back up and settled back on his haunches. "Jack, what really happened back there?"

"Nothing happened. I must have passed out, I think."

He took hold of my arm and squeezed. "Don't bullshit me. What _happened_?"

 _The scent of roses, so heavy in the air I could taste it. Pain and joy and wild glorious pleasure tangling together in my heart._

I closed my eyes. "I don't know. I drank something. And everything went... weird."

"Weird how?"

I wasn't sure I had the words to answer that particular question. "There was a woman..."

"What woman?"

"The dark-haired woman in the purple dress." But even as I said it I knew. "There was no woman in a purple dress was there? Not that you saw, anyway."

He shook his head, disquiet in his eyes.

"So unless I was hallucinating, and that's always a possibility..." I grimaced. "Min, I think I might have accidentally fucked a Daedric Lord."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But at least you got your staff, hey?"

"Thing is..." His mouth twisted. "No one fucks a Daedric Lord, Jack. They fuck you. More accurately they fuck you over."

" _Yeah_."

Curiosity gleamed in his eyes. "Was it good?"

"It was–"

 _My fingers burying deep in hair, closing tight around a horn. Sharp teeth on my skin_.

And I couldn't sit down any longer, not with Min's eyes on me and my cheeks burning. I crossed to the window, stared out onto the courtyard. I'd always thought of myself as only being interested in women, but whatever had happened to me, it hadn't been about male or female: it had been _everything,_ every single one of my messed up, filthy little daydreams handed to me on a platter, and with the promise of more to come.

"It was _unbelievable_."

"You really did get fucked, huh?"

"Shut up."

"You know, I'm almost tempted to tell the buyer to go to hell and let you take this. Since you're one of Sanguine's favoured. It almost feels like you ought to have it. As long as you have a couple of thousand Septims to spare, naturally, and another thousand to keep my buyer sweet."

"I'm not one of his favoured." It was impossible to keep the note of hurt out of my voice. In the corner of my eye I saw Min glance up sharply. "He kicked me out. He told me I wasn't ready."

At that, there was a long silence.

"I think maybe this was a mistake," Min finally said. "I should have brought Armande instead."

"To Sanguine's shrine? Miaran would have had your balls."

"I know, but still... you of all people. You're too impulsive and you don't take enough care. You never have." He regarded me with unease. "You have to be be careful, Jack. It's one thing to screw around. Gods know there are few who haven't felt the lure of Sanguine at one time or another, but he's one of the most dangerous of the lot. Fuck the four corners of the Dunmer House of Troubles – Sanguine's the fucking _foundation_. And the last thing you need is a Daedric Lord taking an interest in you."

I took another glance at the tree in the courtyard. A pair of ravens had settled on its branches, ruffling their feathers in the damp mizzling rain.

"Yeah," I said. "I think it's probably a bit late for that."

~o~O~o~

The smell of old books enveloped me as I opened the door to the bookshop where Calvus Varo plied his trade. Inside the air was peaceful with the quiet sort of calm you might expect to find in a temple but which I never did.

A crook-backed scrivener with ink-stained fingers slid a heavy leather-bound book from the shelves, and cradled it in his bony arms, shaky as a new mother still recovering from the birth. I looked away from him and swept my gaze around the bookshop, at the shelves stuffed full with books of every size and shape and condition, some newly bound with fresh leather, others battered and ancient, and some stored safely behind glass cabinets in a way that had me itching to pick the lock and see what rare treasures laid within.

Calvus sat at the counter, squinting down at a book, his finger following the text. He looked older, as if ten years had passed rather than four. He glanced up at my approach, taking in first my robes and then my face, and I held my breath, waiting for the moment when he recognised me. It didn't come.

"Can I help you, sir? Are you looking for any book in particular, or do you come to trade?"

A stab of strange mingled emotions pricked at me: disappointment, along with pride that my disguise worked so well. "As a matter of fact, I _am_ looking for a book," I said, my voice rich Colovian. I lowered it. "Something quite rare. _The Tale of Dro'Zira_."

"Ah." His eyebrows flicked up in surprise. "That is rare. I'm afraid I don't currently have a copy in stock, but I do have a couple of ideas where I could start looking."

The scrivener gave a heavy sigh, replaced the book on the shelf with a little difficulty and a lot of reluctance, and left the shop. The little bell signalled his departure. Calvus swung around on his chair and rifled through a box stacked full with books.

"If you have a very particular interest in Khajiit religion and culture," he said, "we had a selection of books brought in the other day. I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to catalogue them thoroughly, but I do believe some of the books related to some rather fascinating aspects of Khajiit moon worship. Hmm, hmm, hmm, let me see now..."

"I'm looking for something special. It's a gift, you see," I said. "For a friend." And with those last three words I allowed the Niben Valley to creep back into my voice, the drawling vowels of Bravil. Corvus went still, his hands tightening around the book he was about to pull from the box, then agonisingly slowly he lifted his head and stared at me.

I grinned.

" _Gods_ ," he said, his voice breathless. " _Jack_?"

"It's good to see you again."

"But... _Gods_ , look at you, my boy." And all at once, moving with a speed that seemed incongruous for such an elderly man, he was on his feet, moving around the side of the counter. My smile slipped a little with the flash of realisation that either I had grown or he had shrunk as he gripped my aching arms and stared up into my face with astonishment. "Look at you."

"I grew," I said. "A bit."

"A bit?" He gave a disbelieving laugh. "Not just a bit, Jack. By the Nine Divines, you're looking well. And these clothes..." He ran a curious eye over my robes. "There's a story there, I suspect."

"A long and convoluted one."

"Naturally. I'd expect nothing less. And something tells me," he said, "it doesn't involve you having made your fortune in Morrowind."

"You're right. It doesn't."

"I won't ask too many questions..."

"You can ask all the questions you like. I can't promise I'll answer any of them, but..." I hesitated. "I think I owe you a few answers at least."

He slapped my arm. I tried not to flinch at the stab of pain from my tender bruises, and thanked the gods he didn't notice. It wasn't anything I wanted to explain. "You owe me nothing, my boy. Except perhaps an afternoon of your company. Have you eaten?"

In fact I had, but I could probably stand to eat again. "Not yet."

"Well, come. I'll shut up the shop for the afternoon, and we can go for lunch in the Two Sisters Lodge. They do a very fine rabbit stew."

The bell jingled again and Calvus hurried off to usher the prospective customer out with some effusive apologies, and some explanation about a dear nephew he hadn't seen in years and was very fond of unexpectedly arriving in town.

~o~O~o~

He was right about the stew. It was delicious, served on a trencher of bread flavoured with sage. The sauce was creamy and spiked with mustard seeds and whole pickled peppercorns which crunched between my teeth. We took a long unhurried lunch, the carved wooden bowl in the middle of the table filling up with delicate rabbit bones, as the level of the bottle of wine went steadily down.

I redonned the Colovian accent, which drew a curious glance from Calvus, but he didn't press too hard about where I had been or what I had been doing. From the occasional glint in his eyes I suspected he'd guessed. Every time the conversation started to drift towards me and what I had been doing, I gave it a delicate nudge and shifted it back to him. In truth, it wasn't hard. All I had to do was mention books, or a particular volume I had read or wanted to read, and we were back on less treacherous ground. He was even less fond of his cousin than he had been four years ago, but needs must, and it was a fine opportunity to rebuild his collection.

After the innkeeper had removed our bowls Calvus went quiet, swirling the sweet amber-coloured wine in his glass distractedly.

"Speaking of your collection..." I fished around in my pack and pulled out the book. "I have a gift for you."

He blinked, startled, as I passed it over, and squinted at the spine.

" _Ancient Tales of the Dwemer_?" His eyes widened. "By Talos, Jack, this is... This must have cost you a fortune. I hadn't realised there were any complete copies left."

"It took me a while to track down," I admitted.

In fact, I'd stumbled across it in a private library. When I burgled houses, I often spend as much time browsing shelves than rifling through jewellery boxes and silverware cabinets. Books can be surprisingly good to steal. Their value can run into the thousands, and unlike jewellery, where highly recognisable items often need to be melted down and reworked to get anywhere near the true value, book collectors are seldom so finicky. There is a certain obsessive nature amongst book collectors, the need to own and possess, even if said possession is not technically legal. And a book may be owned and read in private. No one need ever know you own it and its value remains unchanged. The same cannot be said of jewellery.

This particular copy was not stolen. I might not have learned of its existence in an entirely legal way, but it had been purchased entirely legally. Well, almost entirely legally. A few discreet enquiries, and it turned out the owner might be willing to part with it in return for a particular item that I hadn't been able to obtain except via certain extra-legal measures. That was good enough for me, although granted my morals always have been a bit flexible.

He closed the book, and set it carefully on the table. "Thank you, Jack," he said, although he didn't seem as pleased as I had expected. When Jobasha had seen the book he'd virtually purred. I'd had to prise the book out of his grip, and from the way he'd bared his teeth and flattened his ears, I'd been pretty sure he was considering tearing my throat out.

"You... don't like it." And gods, how _crushed_ I sounded, my voice crumbling at the edges. The old ever-present guilt, chased away for a few scant hours by a glass or two of wine and a fine rabbit stew, came creeping back, like a wolf prowling the edge of a campfire.

"I do like it. I'm very grateful. And it is good to see you, my boy. It's just..." He lowered his voice. "I would ask you where you've been, but I don't want to pry..."

"The Imperial City, mostly. We have a house in the Waterfront District, Armande and I. Along a Khajiit who I think would be very glad to make your acquaintance." I gave a shrug. "It's comfortable enough. Not fancy, but compared to Shitbrook Alley in Bravil, it might as well be a palace. Min sends his regards."

Something flickered in his eyes. "Ah, Minelcar," he said, carefully. "I take it then that you joined the guild."

I nodded.

"Mm." He sipped of his wine. "I always rather suspected you would. Well, for what it's worth, it seems to be a life that suits you."

"Thank you," I said, although I wasn't entirely certain he meant it as a compliment. "Calvus, what's wrong."

He shook his head. "Possibly nothing. At least, I hope so. I am glad you came to see me, Jack."

"I'm only sorry it took me so long."

"As am I. Odd as it may sound I miss those days. And Bravil. My books..."

Inwardly, I winced.

"I have some contacts there still. They send me rumours, gossip, that sort of thing..." He hesitated, and I nodded.

"Go on."

"About a year or so ago, someone was in Bravil. Asking too many questions. Specifically about you."

I shivered in unease, brought the glass of wine to my lips. It burned amber in the candlelight. "Who?"

"I don't know."

"Friends of Pellis?"

His eyes closing, and an involuntary shudder ran through him. Reliving that night, I thought, when the flames consumed his house. "I don't know. I don't think so. My friend wasn't able to find out without raising too many questions themselves. But they were asking for you, asking if anyone had heard anything of a young boy calling himself Jack or Jackdaw. They said..." He hesitated, then seemed to force himself to look at me. "They said you'd been stolen away as a baby. That your... that your mother was looking for you."

"My mother." A cold fist closed around my throat, tightening with every breath I tried to take. My hand was trembling so much I was about to spill the wine. I went to set it down, changed my mind and swallowed it back instead. " _Fuck_."

"If I'd known where you were..."

"No, it's... It's fine." I placed the glass down, pressed my hand over my mouth. "Was it a woman asking?"

He shook his head. "A man. Slender, dark-haired. Colovian, but that doesn't mean much."

"No, it doesn't."

"Jack..." He hesitated. "I know this is none of my business, but is it possible..."

"What, that my mother really was looking for me?" My voice was grating, no trace of Colovian now. "My mother's dead. She's been dead a long time."

"I'm sorry. Then..." He removed his spectacles, tapped them against him cheek. "Then these people, whoever they were, were lying. Which means that whatever they want you for..."

"...Is unlikely to be for the good of my health and well being. Well, not much change there then." I drew a shaky breath, forced the tremor in my hands to still. Focused on the Colovian, the differing movements of my mouth and lips to shape the words. "I'm used to people wanting to beat the shit out of me," I said, and now the accent was flawless. "Do you know if anyone said anything?"

Calvus raised an eyebrow at the shift in my voice than shook his head. "I have no idea, my boy, but if you're living in the Imperial City now it's unlikely they'll overlook it for long. They'll be there soon, looking for you, if they haven't arrived already. I think it might be wise to say goodbye to Jackdaw of Bravil. This..." He hesitated, searching for the right word, then nodded at me, "...persona you don like a mask, does he have a name?"

"Corvus Alviarus."

" _Corvus._ " He stared at me in astonishment, them laughed. "Perhaps I should have guessed. You know, sometimes you're too damned clever for your own good. You picked the name yourself, I take it."

I nodded. "It seemed fitting."

"Well, _Corvus Alviarus_ , if I may say, the name suits you." He swept his gaze over me, his lips tightening into a smile that didn't quite touch his eyes. "The whole thing suits you. I always said you always were a born forger."

~o~O~o~

After a brief squabble about the matter of settling up the bill, which I let him win, we walked back to his lodgings above the bookshop. "Will you be staying in Skingrad long?"

I shook my head. "I only stuck around to see you. I have to move on tomorrow."

He glanced at me, his eyebrows raised, but asked no questions. I was grateful for that. I think if he'd pressed, I would have told him the whole damned story. "Well, don't leave it so damned long next time."

"I won't," I said, and meant it. "I am sorry it took me so long to find you. And not just because of..." I gave an awkward little shrug. "I miss those days a little too. Things were simpler them."

"Because you were a boy. Things always seem simple when you're young. Then you get older, and realise how wrong you were. That's how the world works."

"So this is me growing up?"

He gave me a sudden flash of a grin. "Exactly. How old are you now?"

"Twenty-one, I think."

"Don't be so uncertain. Would Corvus Alviarus be uncertain? Does he not know exactly when he was born and who his parents are?"

"Sort of. He's never been _too_ certain about his father."

Calvus snorted. "You're a born forger, my boy. Nothing's ever perfect."

"Bastardy's a handy thing," I admitted with a grin. "Makes it ever so much harder to track a man's family down."

He laughed, then quietened. "Speaking of bastards, how is Minelcar?" He was trying to sound casual, as if the answer hardly mattered. Min had been much the same way when he'd asked me to send his regards: he'd barely looked at me, and had flushed dark with irritation when I tried to press him into coming.

"He's well," I said. "Very well. Wild as ever. Not quite as wild as me, mind you."

"Ah." He fell silent again while I burned with curiosity.

"You should come visit," I said. "We'd be glad to have you stay with us, although I suspect you'd be more comfortable if you stayed in a tavern. Still, you'd be welcome, and I'm sure Min would be happy to see you again. There's a wonderful book fair every third week in the Market District that I think you'd love."

"I might at that," he said, although from his tone, friendly but non-committal, I knew he never would. I let the subject fall.

"Well..." And we stopped outside the shop, the window shuttered and dark. "Good night, then."

"Goodnight, Corvus. Don't be a stranger."

~o~O~o~

The bathhouse in Skingrad was only small and modest compared to the opulent establishments in the Imperial City – even Sakeepa's – but air was sweetly scented, the steam hot and medicinal, and the attendant attractive and discreet, hardly raising an eyebrow when I eased off my shirt to reveal my battered torso. She was gentle too, as she scraped the grime from every inch of my skin. The slab on which I lay was heated from within, and in the cosseting warmth of the room, I rested my cheek pillowed on the tiles, and dozed. Drowsy and relaxed, warm and clean for what seemed the first time since I'd come to Skingrad, I wondered if I could bear to take a dip in the chilled saltwater pool, and decided that on the whole I would rather not. I was so comfortable and warm and pleasantly drowsy the idea held little appeal.

Besides the assistant was good at this, her hands gentle, working their way up my neck and into my hair, sending shivers of pleasure down my spine. She leaned across me to work at my temples and her breasts pressed against my back, snapping me out of my doze. Almost certainly deliberate.

I grinned into the tiles, my body waking up. "I'm afraid you're out of luck," I said. "I don't pay for sex. Although you can be assured you'll receive a generous tip for trying so _wonderfully_ hard. "

"And here I was looking forward to making love to you. Such a pity," she murmured, her voice rich and soft and warm and... oddly familiar. "I suppose I shall have to do it for nothing then."

"Well, now..." I grinned down at the tiles, shifted my body so my cock wasn't pressed quite so tightly against the slab. "If you absolutely _insist_ –"

I turned my head, found myself staring into the cowled face of the Gray Fox.

" _Shitting hell_!" I scrambled up, slipping naked and oily from the slab, while the Gray Fox smirked from where she perched atop it.

"Well met, Jack."

"What the–" Cheeks burning, I snatched for the towel and wrapped it around my waist. "Gods, I feel violated now."

"Funny, I could have sworn you were enjoying yourself. I do hope so. I'll be heartbroken if I don't get my tip." Her gaze flicked down to my chest. "Those bruises look painful."

"I had an altercation with a Daedric Lord. Nothing serious."

"Hmm." She folded her arms. "I'd ask which one, but knowing you, and considering we're in Skingrad, I rather suspect I can guess."

"Godsblood. Does everyone know about the Shrine of Sanguine? It must be the worst-kept secret in Cyrodiil." I glanced at her, my gaze drawn back to the cowl and to the runes etched in the felted wool, which seemed to glow from within. It was a crude thing, and should have looked ridiculous with its haphazard, childish stitching, but instead it was unnerving. More than unnerving. A chill note of fear seemed to start at the nape of my neck and spread throughout my body, coiling tight around my heart, filling me with the urge to run. Fast and far and not stop until I'd left this woman – this _thing_ – far behind me.

And then the moment passed as it always did.

"We were starting to worry about you," she said. "We expected you back days ago."

"I had business in Skingrad."

"Visiting old friends?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes." I tightened the towel around my waist, and ran my hand through my hair. My composure – and my cock – were finally starting to settle down, my cock rather reluctantly. My air of calm was mostly faked, but at least my heart wasn't skittering at twice the normal rate any more.

Meeting the Gray Fox never failed to give me the fucking creeps.

It didn't help that she was dressed in women's clothing today, in a loose billowing shirt of fine brushed silk, dove-gray and translucent where the oil had soaked into it, tucked into a moleskin skirt. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and the fabric draped loosely over a figure that would have caught my attention on the street. Lovely really, or she would have been if it wasn't for the hideous cowl.

"And it couldn't wait?" she asked.

"It had waited too long already." I gestured to my clothes. "Am I permitted to get dressed, oh guildmaster mine, or...?"

She waved a hand. "By all means."

"Then–" I whirled my finger in the air.

She rolled her eyes, a gesture turned ghoulish by the cowl. Seeing the whites of her eyes sent another shiver of itching fear down the nape of my neck. "Modesty hardly becomes you."

But she turned her back on me and leaned against the slab. I glanced at her, making sure she wasn't going to turn back around at the last moment, and started to dress quickly, tugging my clothes on over my oil-slick skin. But clothes from Morrowind aren't exactly designed for dressing in a hurry.

"Guess I'm not going to get the chance for a dip now," I said, glaring at her back.

"Events move apace, Corvus. Perhaps if you hadn't allowed yourself to get side-tracked–" she started to look around.

"Eyes front."

"Oh please." And deliberately she turned to face me. I swore, as I tried to pull on the robes, cursing the intricate and complicated layers and lining that tangled and caught on every limb. I forced my arm down through what I thought was an armhole and heard a seam rip.

" _Fuck_."

"Gods, just let me help."

"I'm fine. I can–" I clamped my jaw shut at the approach of the cowl. It gave off some strange smell, some ancient desiccated spice I couldn't place, and this close I could see the grain in the cloth, each individual strand in the thick coarsely spun thread. She tugged the robe onto me with the patient air of a parent dressing a small child, and smoothed out the folds in the fabric. "There."

I half-expected her to lick her finger and rub away a smudge of dirt on my cheek.

"Thank you," I said, through gritted teeth. "How did you know I was in Skingrad anyway? Were you spying on me?"

"As a matter of fact I was." Her eyes lingered on me. "Did you know?"

"I had my suspicions. Every now and then, I felt like I was being watched."

"And you weren't tempted to attack me again?"

"Attack–" I broke off, frowning at the tantalising hint of a memory, just out of reach. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"No. Of course not." She sighed. Behind the cowl, her eyes went weary. "Not that it matters. The question is, are you ready?"

And the thing is, I thought I had been, right up until the moment I saw her: my guildmaster, the woman half the guild still thought a myth. I hadn't thought I could prepare any more, that I might even have prepared too much. Sometimes, after all, it's better to wing it. Or so I told myself.

It was at times like this, I realised just how much bullshit that actually was.

"Well," I said, forcing a smile, "not like it's the first time I've had the shit kicked out of me."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Happy New Year everyone. As always, thanks to tafferling for betaing, and thank you for reading. If you're enjoying this (or if you have constructive criticism to offer) then I'd love it if you took the time to leave a review.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fourteen**

" _Lord Ogin Jornibret of Gaer  
Watched the ladies dance on air  
The loveliest in the realm.  
A fellow in a ursine-hide helm  
Said, 'The Queen of Rimmen and her consort  
Have put together quite a sport.  
Which lady fair do you prefer?'  
Lord Jornibret pointed, 'Her.  
See that bosom bob and weave.  
Well-suited for me to love and leave.'"_

– _Lord Jornibret's Last Dance_

From inside the most expensive room in the most expensive establishment in Leyawiin I heard the beginnings of a scream. It was interrupted by a painful meaty grunt that carried the weight of a fist thumping into tender areas.

I froze in the corridor, offering a brief prayer to whichever of the Nine could be arsed to listen.

 _You can do this_ , I thought. _This, my boy, is a piece of piss._

And still I hesitated, long enough to know I risked ruining everything.

Godsdamn the Gray Fox for fucking me over. Yet again. Almost like the bastard did it on purpose.

I hammered on the door, and the sounds of struggle within ceased. "Hello?" I called out in a voice that seemed not my own. "Everything all right in there?"

Inside, someone cursed.

I set my shoulder to the door, and rammed it open, ebony short sword in hand. Inside I saw more or less what I had expected to see: Marus Goldwine, not-so-beloved nephew of the Count of Kvatch, embroiled in an altercation with two thugs. One had his arm clamped tight around the lordling's neck, a dagger pressed to his throat. Marus's bodyguard was slumped on the bed, caught in the grip of a powerful paralysis potion that ought to keep him incapacitated long enough to prevent the bastard from slaughtering the lot of us.

Bodyguard or not, Marus had put up a fight. The thug holding him – Niels – had a broken nose and a split lip, and Selwym, who was rifling through the lordling's belongings, shot me a where-the-fuck-have-you-been glower.

Niels shifted the blade at Marus Goldwine's throat. "One word and he's a dead man."

I glanced at Marus, expecting his eyes to be frightened, pleading. Instead they were full of rage, and my assessment of him shifted from dismissive to something approaching respect. He had guts, this boy.

"Be reasonable, gentlemen," I said. "Be _sensible_. Let the young man go, and there'll be no harm done, eh? We can all walk away from this unscathed.

Selwyn nodded to my sword. "Nice blade you got there. Know how to use it?"

"Could be I'm the finest swordsman in all of Morrowind."

"That so?" He chuckled. "And how do I know you're not lying? See, I have a feeling that you have no fucking clue how to use that blade and you're just bluffing."

I swallowed, my gaze flicking to Marus and then to the prone bodyguard. "Walk away and you'll be lucky enough never to have to find out."

He nodded, amused. Almost indulgent. "See, the thing is, lad... you're holding the damn thing _wrong_."

A glance down at the blade in my hands was all it took. He lunged forward, grabbed my wrist, and jerked me forwards. His forehead crunched into my nose.

Selwyn wrenched my head back by my hair. I tore away, even though the pain left my eyes watering, and drove my elbow back into his nose.

It was a dance the three of us had practised repeatedly, but in the end it was only ever going to be mostly improvised. It looked real, because it was real. These bastards didn't do things by halves. They weren't constrained like I was, having to resist the urge to resort to the dirtier of my tactics, because no noble worth his salt, even a bastard-born one, would stoop to such vicious dishonourable street-level tactics. Fuck it up and the years we'd spent building Corvus Alviarus went to waste. All those bribes, all those favours, lost on the wind.

I stamped down on his foot and spun, shifting my grip on the ebony blade to raise it for the killing blow–

I hesitated.

And he drove his dagger into my gut.

"Fuck," Niels spat, "you stupid cunt. You've killed him!"

And as I fell back on the bed, clutching my abdomen, with someone screaming for the guard, the thugs made their exeunt, scrabbling for the window, grabbing up my sword and the lordling's coin purse along the way.

My hands came away red. _He's killed me,_ I thought, staring up at the ceiling. _The dozy fuckwit's only gone and killed me._ All that time preparing and practising gone to nothing, because a blow that should have been a mere flesh-wound had been a little too deep, a little too careless, and I was a dead man.

 _Fuck._

Marus knelt on the bed beside me, pressing his hands to my abdomen "Someone call for a healer!" he bellowed at the door.

I gripped his shirt, smeared bloodied handprints on the velvet. "I'm not... I've..." My vision blackened at the edges like charred paper. A choked up sob. "Oh gods, I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die, friend." Marus's reassuring smile was spoiled somewhat by his screaming again for a healer seconds later. He leaned on me, putting pressure on my wound. My elegant thick Morrowind silks were soaked right through with blood.

If nothing else, at least I hadn't been poisoned this time, I thought, and half-wild laughter bubbled up from somewhere within me. And in the moments before I blacked out, I thought I saw the face of the Gray Fox watching me, and the shadows reaching out from around him to claim me as one of their own.

~o~O~o~

I woke to the crackle of a fire in the grate, and to the disconcerting echo of a memory. Not the Chapel of Mara that I'd up woken in, but a room in an inn. There was a moment of disorientation until I realised, aided partly by the bloodied bedclothes bundled up and thrown in the corner, that I was still in Marus's room.

A good sign.

An even better one of course is that I was still alive. Somehow.

"I cannot credit it," the innkeeper was saying, wringing her hands. "Thieves and murderers in my inn."

"Not successful murderers, thank the Nine, but only because he was damned lucky," the healer said. She was bending over me, finishing the binding of my wound, a sharp-faced woman, with wispy blonde hair escaping from beneath her hood. She winked at me. "If the blade had struck another inch to the left, I doubt there's anything I could have done."

Both Marus and the innkeeper paled. "You saved my life, sir," Marus said to me. "I am indebted to you."

"You're very welcome, _muthsera_ ," I said, weakly, struggling to sit up. "But it was nothing, really. Only what anyone would have – _ow!_ – done."

"If only that were true," Marus said. He was trying to usher the innkeeper out of the door, still while she bleated on about thieves and murders and whatever the world was coming to. He turned, frowning, as I tried to sit up. "No, no, sir, stay where you are for a moment. The gods know we don't want your guts spilling out over the carpet, do we? The innkeeper's upset enough as it is."

I let out an involuntary laugh, and winced at a sharp jab of pain in my side. "Well, we certainly can't have that."

The healer rolled her eyes at us both. "He'll be fine. Although he needs to take it easy."

Marus thanked her and ushered her to the door. She cast a sardonic look my way, and then, to my relief, she was gone. Her expression was entirely too knowing and arch.

"Bit of luck that, eh?" Marus Goldwine said, cheerfully. "A healer staying in the same inn?"

 _Yes, isn't it just?_ "I always have been a lucky bastard."

"Well, you're in luck tonight, my friend, since I have a very fine bottle of brandy, and as the lingering effects of whatever foul poison those godsrotted cowards used seem to have left my manservant with a splintering headache, nobody to share it with. Except of course, the man who saved my life. Who I suspect could be very much in need of a stiffener."

My mood brightened. "Cyrodilic brandy?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"Not as far as I'm concerned. Almost worth getting stabbed for." I levered my legs off the bed and brought my poor aching body to a sitting position.

"Ha. A man after my own heart... although I do beg your pardon, I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

I made an awkward, stiff little bow. "Corvus Alviarus of Morrowind, My Lord."

"I'm no lord, sir. Call me Marus, please." He passed me a generous glass of brandy, and took a seat by the fire, sipping his own. "I thought I caught an accent. But you are from Colovia originally?"

I took a seat opposite him. "I was born on the Gold Coast, as it happens, in the village of Esterborne. My family moved to Mournhold when I was a boy, but since Vvardenfell was opened to outlanders, I've been a citizen of Balmora for my many and varied sins."

"You and every other Imperial in Morrowind, I expect."

"More or less. Nothing moves faster than an Imperial merchant when there's a sniff of profits to be made." I grinned. "You'd almost think there were more of us in Vvardenfell now than Dunmer."

"I bet the Dark Elves aren't too thrilled about that."

"Gods no. Spitting cliff racer plumes, most of them." I took a sip of the brandy, and felt the tension slipping away. "By the Nine, that's good."

"I expect it's not something you get often in Morrowind?"

"Not so often as I would like," I said, and took another considerably larger sip. I had to restrain myself from gulping it down in one. I'd heard Marus was the generous sort, but swigging the glass in the hopes of a faster top-up really would just be taking the piss. "Perhaps that's for the best. I'm not sure my coffers could withstand the onslaught. It is starting to get easier to obtain, but, by the Nine, the _price_."

He smiled, tilted his glass towards me. "Worth every penny."

"I shall try to remember that when I'm living in the gutter in abject poverty, My Lo... Marus." And with another slightly too thirsty gulp the rest of my brandy was gone, and I couldn't help flicking a hopeful glance towards the bottle. He followed my gaze, and grinned, and poured me another glass, topping up his own in the process.

"Have you got business interests in Morrowind?"

I sighed, stared moodily into the glass. "I did, but since they opened up Vvardenfell..." I shuddered theatrically. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Rather cut-throat?"

"'Cut-throat'? Gods." I shuffled forwards on my seat, winced at the ache in my ribs. "Imagine, if you would, sir, a pit full of starving wolves. Tormented and tortured, kept just on the edge of starvation. Think what would happen should you toss a hunk of raw steak into that pit."

"As bad as that?"

"Worse. _Much_ worse. You know things are bad when you overhear members of the Morag Tong complaining about needing a holiday."

He laughed.

"Ostensibly," I continued, "I'm in Cyrodiil to oversee the drawing up of a trade agreement. Making sure all the details are right, that sort of numbingly boring thing..."

"Sounds tedious."

"It is," I agreed. "It's the sort of menial task you give to the idiot son who can't be trusted to do anything else."

"Surely not. You don't strike me as an idiot."

"Thank you, sir. You're very kind. I'd ask you to explain that to my family, but... well, the truth is I'm starting to think I might be better off out of Morrowind. It's altogether too perilous a land for me, I'm not nearly ruthless enough, and I find the climate here agrees with me." I paused to take another sip of brandy, a smile playing around my lips. "And, of course, the women."

"Ah." He grinned. "I've heard tales about Dunmer women, myself. Always been curious whether they're true or not."

"In my experience, sir, they are," I said, offering up an inward apology to Miaran and all her dark elf sisters. "I have some tales–"

"Oh really?"

"–None of which I can share." I waited a beat, for his expression to fall. "I'm nowhere _near_ drunk enough."

Marus burst out laughing and snatched up the bottle of brandy. "You ask me, Corvus, you would do very well in Morrowind. You have quite the talent for manipulation."

 _Oh, My Lord, you have no idea._

I thanked him as he poured me another glass, wondered if we were going to get through the entire bottle, and hoped that indeed we would. No better way to cement a friendship than almost dying and then getting shit-faced together and talking about women "In truth, Morrowind is a strange place, and Vvardenfell even stranger. I was only a boy when I left Cyrodiil, so you'd think I could have come to consider Morrowind my home. Mournhold, perhaps, but..." I shook my head. "The moment I tasted the air here, free of even the slightest trace of ash, saw the clear skies overhead, heard someone greet me without sounding like they'd be far happier if I were skinned alive and hung from the nearest tree for the sole crime of walking their lands as an outlander, I felt like I'd come home."

"Well, I for one am thoroughly glad you're here."

"I appreciate that, sir. It's very kind of you."

"And I'm sure you'll soon find that there's a great deal to be said for Colovian women, even if they aren't always quite as friendly as Dunmer women are said to be." He shot me a curious glance, a wicked glint in his eye. "Out of purely academic interest, how drunk would you say you had to be before you would feel able to tell your tales?"

"Oh, very much drunker, sir."

"Hmm." He glanced at the bottle of brandy, holding it up to the light of the fire. "In that case, perhaps I had better call for the innkeeper and order up another bottle of brandy. I rather suspect one will not suffice."

Godsdamn. Perhaps the stabbing really had been worth it.

~o~O~o~

The Corbolo's Edge Corner Club was a Dunmer-run inn in Cheydinhal, the sort of rough and seedy place where even I would have hesitated to step if I hadn't been so hopelessly obliterated out of my skull on drink. Poorly daubed paintings of Telvanni mushroom spires hung on the walls. Red eyes watched us resentfully from every corner, and I was getting definite we're-going-to-slit-your-throats-and-rape-your-corpses vibes from all around.

Thankfully, Marus's bodyguard was lurking in the corner, who had pulled the short straw and had been assigned to shadow Marus everywhere, from bar to street to brothel. The poor sod.

We were trying to chat up two Dunmer women. One was Morrowind-born, arch and aloof, regarding Marus with a kind of detached interest from above the rim of her glass of mazte, as if he were a particularly fascinating species of beetle she wanted to study closer before she finally crushed him beneath her boot. The other was Cyrodiil-bred, and rather sweet-natured for a dark elf: she was accepting our drunken attentions without looking like she wanted to rip out lungs out of our chests with her bare hands.

I'll let you guess which one I got stuck with.

Flirting with dark elf women is a strange and exhilarating experience – terrifying and treacherous and exciting all at once. I'd passed some of the Dunmeris words and phrases I knew to Marus, and he was managing to utterly mangle them much to his companion's delight, while the other woman – her cousin, I later learned – looked on in contemptuous fascination.

And yet it worked and eyes in the darkness burned a little more savagely as Marus and the sweet-natured Dunmer slipped away. Leaving me drunk to Oblivion, alone and unprotected in a dark elf corner club, surrounded by dark elves who would quite happily have spat on my corpse for the insult of having deprived them of the pleasure of not having got to kill me themselves.

Just another day in the company of Marus Goldwine. And this was a relatively uneventful one.

The dark elf regarded me. "You've never been to Morrowind in your life, have you?"

I considered lying and decided that under the circumstances my best chance of getting out of that bar alive was telling the truth. "No."

"Hmm." She tilted her head. Her skin very dark, her hair silvery-white. "And you lied because...?"

"In all fairness I didn't lie. I never said I was from Morrowind."

"That's true. You didn't did you?" In the darkness, other patrons shifted. I tensed, calculating my odds, eyeing up the bottle of mazte. Someone was muttering angrily in the corner, too low and grating for me to pick up more than a handful of words. Enough to make me think I should be running like Hircine himself was after me, but the time for running was long-past.

A dark elf was approaching, head down, grey cheeks bruised dark with rage, eyes filled with loathing. "Is this fetcher bothering y–"

She snapped out something grating in Dunmeris so thick I barely caught a word. And whatever it was she'd said, it made him turn on his heel without so much as breaking his stride.

Her expression barely flickered.

I gulped down my matze. Her eyes were resting on me now with a deep and terrible curiosity. And I half-wished the Dunmer and his friends had dragged me out onto the streets and left me bleeding in the gutter: I would have felt far safer.

It didn't come as much of a surprise to learn that she was a mage of House Telvanni. And lest my testicles be filled with stinging ants, I will say only this: it was an interesting night.

~o~O~o~

Marus Goldwine was exactly the sort of noble that my future father-in-law would have quite happily spent hours railing about if you gave him a chance. There was a long running feud between Anvil and Kvatch, dating back to the days before Anvil became a part of the empire, back when it was a backwater haven for bandits and pirates. Anvil has a long and fascinating history, and not all of it good.

The Umbranox family was powerful, and well respected, but, as the people of Kvatch were known to say, before Fasil Umbranox was granted his title for the defeat of the Black Flag, he was only a sailor.

And therein lies a difference between the two cities: In Anvil they say exactly the same thing, only they say it with pride.

It was hard to tell how much of the rivalry between the two cities was light-hearted, and how much genuine resentment still lingered in people's hearts. Even now the argument lives on, while Kvatch rises from the smoking ruins. The rebuilding of that once fine city will be a long slow process, and the Empire has few enough resources to spare after the Oblivion crisis. Anvil lent what aid it could, naturally; Millona was more than generous, at a time when Anvil had its own troubles to deal with.

And still people bicker.

I never could see much difference between the people of the two cities. I saw only Colovians, more alike than they realised, bickering over petty differences.

Perhaps it's for the best – if they ever came to realise how alike they were, they might unite in a far more pressing matter: beating the ever-loving shit out of the Nibenese.

Marus didn't take much after his family, and even less after his uncle. He was a young man, bored and reckless as young men often were. A little too trusting, perhaps. A little too indulged. He liked people, particularly women.

Just as well, since the current Countess of Kvatch is one of his several bastards.

She's a sharp-witted, black-eyed little thing, speedily wedded to a hapless, hopeless scion of the Goldwine family to strengthen her claim. Thankfully she took after her mother rather than her father. Her mother's first husband, and the man who raised her as his own, was killed in the Imperial City Arena, and so she had little enthusiasm for rebuilding the arena in Kvatch. I have heard rumours that she plans to raze it completely and build pleasure gardens and a statue dedicated to Akatosh and Martin Septim in its place.

Yet another thing for people to bicker about.

~o~O~o~

Kvatch during the festival of Harvest's End was a sight to see, with the streets decorated with streams of brightly coloured ribbons, and the market filled with stalls selling food of every kind. Music played from every street corner, and dancers whirled throughout the streets, unmarried women with loose hair bedecked with wild-flowers and married women with their hair worn in elaborate plaits woven with wheat. And all of them, whether married or unmarried or not-quite-yet-decided, were insistent on drawing me into their dance. It was, I quickly found, easier and far more enjoyable to let them.

And so I threaded myself through the streets of Kvatch towards the castle, in a processional dance enlivened by the mugs of some spiced wine they kept pressing into my hands, clear as spring water but with a sweet tangy taste that belied how strongly alcoholic it was. It was so strong I felt light-headed after the second mugful, although that might have had something to do with the maiden currently in my arms, her skin translucent and freckled and her eyes a startling shade of green. Startling enough that I was half-tempted to say fuck the whole affair and enjoy Harvest's End in the streets instead – no doubt Marus would forgive me, although the Fox probably wouldn't.

At the castle, I introduced myself to the guards, who themselves smelled a little of the spiced wine, and Inside Marus approached, and clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to make me stagger. "Corvus! I was starting to think you wouldn't make it, my friend."

"As it happens, I almost didn't. It's hard to make it through the crowd without... well, being accosted."

He laughed and winked at me. "That's why Kvatch is the jewel in the Empire's crown. The women here are friendly as Dunmer girls when they want to be. Come, let's find ourselves a drink and I'll introduce you to my uncle."

The celebration of Harvest's End in the castle was a little more stately than the one that raged like a wildfire in the streets, but not by much. A fountain of the same spiced wine spilled over a waterfall of shining crystal, and into a punchbowl from which a liveried orc was serving, the ladle in his massive fist resembling something more like a spoon. He poured us both a glass, and shimmering flecks of light seemed to dance and glimmer like darting minnows in the clear liquid.

Marus led me to a table where his uncle, Count Ormellius Goldwine sat, deep in conversation with a young woman with ash-blonde hair. The count was in his late-thirties, his hair touched with grey, but I barely had time to take much more than a glance at me before my gaze was drawn back to the woman. I was, I admit, a little drunk already – damn that free spiced wine – and it seemed to have left my blood overheated, because I could feel the warmth rising to my cheeks.

Her eyes were calm and watchful, her expression carefully composed. Unlike most of the women present, her dress was sober and plain, the colour of a clear summer sky at twilight, the only decoration a trim of silver thread at her stomacher. She wore her hair in a loose plait that spilled over one bare shoulder. She faced the count, nodding in agreement at his words, and yet kept her hands clasped in her lap in a way that suggested she wished to put a little more distance between them. His hand rested on the back of her chair, as if he longed to do the exact opposite.

I didn't blame him.

"Uncle," Marus said, and while the count went still, the young woman lifted her head. Her eyes shifted from Marus to rest momentarily on me, and an involuntary grin spread across my face. Gods, she was lovely. Quite the loveliest woman I'd ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because the glass of whatever-the-fuck-it-was had gone to my head or because I suspect she may one day read this tale.

(Although, by the by, if you are reading this, Millona, then know I mean every word.)

Count Goldwine's hand tightened on the back of her chair, a flicker of irritation crossing his face at the interruption, then he mastered it and forced a not entirely convincing smile.

"Marus, my boy," he said.

Marus came around the side of the table to kiss his uncle's cheek, and then took the young woman's hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles, before turning to me.

"May I introduce a very good friend of mine, Corvus Alviarus."

"Ah yes, the young man who saved my nephew's worthless hide. I do hope you aren't starting to regret your decision?"

"It was an honour to be of service, my lord," I said, bowing, and trying to keep my gaze from wandering back to the young woman as it was so desperately tempted to do.

"Corvus, this is, as you may have guessed, my uncle, Lord Goldwine, Count of Kvatch. And the fair lady enduring his attentions is the Lady Millona Umbranox, daughter of the Count of Anvil."

 _Fuck. Me. A count's daughter._

I allowed myself to turn back to her and kiss her proffered hand. Just the merest brush before I could stop myself. Her hand was warm, her fingers slight in my own. I lifted my gaze, found her steady gaze watching me with curiosity and amusement. "A pleasure to meet you, my lady," I said.

"And I you, sir," she said, smiling. "Please, won't you join us?"

The offer did not please Lord Goldwine one bit. A faintly put-out expression crossed his face, but as his nephew sank down into a seat beside Millona Umbranox with a certain sprawling sense of ownership, I took a seat as well. Cautiously, I shot a glance at the count, who seemed to be grinding his teeth, but his irritation seemed aimed not at me but at his nephew. And I could take a guess at why.

The widowed count and his impetuous nephew, squabbling over the hand of one of the loveliest women I'd ever seen. And gods, I wanted her for myself.

I hid my smile away behind the glass of the heady intoxicating brew, but felt Millona's gaze on me, her eyes amused. She had seen my smile, recognised it for exactly what it was.

But irritated though Lord Goldwine might be, he was a gracious host. He poured us each a generous glass of wine. "My nephew said you were from Morrowind," he said to me, tilting his head. "But from your accent you're Colovian?"

"Originally, yes. I was born near a village on the Gold Coast, Esterborne."

"I know the area well," Millona said, her voice warm and clear, and although I should have been paying attention to the count I could not help my gaze being drawn back to her. My eyes locked with hers. "It isn't at all far from Anvil. It's beautiful there."

"I'm afraid haven't been back in so long," I said. "I don't really remember."

"But aren't you tempted to return? To visit family, old friends?"

"I… um..." All my prepared knowledge seemed to have deserted me. I'd drunk too much of the whatever-the-fuck-it-was. Why in Oblivion hadn't the Gray Fox warned me about it? Or about this lovely woman, who was looking through me as if she could see every lie I'd ever told written upon my skin.

 _You're staring at her, idiot._

I scrambled for the words, fixed upon something. "In truth... I know few people there now. Or at least, no one there who would particularly welcome me back. My parents were, uh..."

I cleared my throat, gave a tight embarrassed smile to indicate my birth wasn't _quite_.

Millona looked away. The count inclined his head, with a flicker of understanding in his eyes. Both of them politely ignoring my allusion to the question of my birth.

Truth was it didn't mean much, then or now. Only fools who aspire to ranks above their station get aerated over men born outside the state of matrimony. Nobles from the oldest families, in my experience, don't much care. Particularly in Colovia, where a great many powerful men and women of note might not want nosy strangers looking too closely at their family trees. But even though it was a lie, and I knew it was a lie, and that these people wouldn't give two fucks about which side of the sheets I had been born on, to admit it to her, it shamed me.

Heat crept over my cheeks. I stared down at the dark surface of the wine, and saw a face reflected there which did not seem my own. I took a swig, demurred when Count Goldwine topped up his own glass and offered me another.

"Have you been in Cyrodiil long?" he asked, setting down the carafe. "Do you plan to return to Morrowind soon?"

"I've been here a few weeks now. My business here is almost concluded, so I should be returning soon, but..." I hesitated. Millona had turned her head back to look at me again, and was listening as closely as the count and his nephew. I drew a breath. "I find I have little inclination to return. Cyrodiil, particularly Colovia... it's where I was born. I thought I remembered, but the more time I spend here the more I begin to realise how little I knew my homeland and how much I have been missing it."

"Hear hear," Marus said with some feeling and clinked his glass against mine. "Long may Colovia endure. The rest of Tamriel can go to the damned daedra."

Millona burst out laughing. "And what of the Niben, Marus? Would you send half of Cyrodiil to Oblivion along with the rest of Nirn?"

He grinned and leaned towards her. "As far as I'm concerned, Millona, my love" – he did not see how his uncle's lips tightened at that – "Colovia _is_ Cyrodiil."

"Marus!" A Nibenese young woman of about fourteen or fifteen ran up, her hair loose and entwined with intricate jewelled flowers that made my palms itch. She wore a summer gown of lavender silk so fine as to be almost transparent, and fastened by a segmented silver collar around her throat. Her face was round, not yet having shed the puppy fat, and her dark eyes were impetuous and determined. She took hold of Marus's arm, tugging him up. "Come dance with me."

"In a moment, Alessia. We're talking. May I introduce the Lady Allessia Valga, daughter of the Count and Countess of Leyawiin. Allessia, this is Corvus Alviarus." Her gaze flitted towards me and away, at first distinctly unimpressed. A moment later, it shifted back, with a second rather closer perusal, a curious glint in her eye. I smiled back, more out of instinct than any particular interest.

"Come, Alessia," Millona said, patting the seat beside her. "Sit by me."

Alessia's lips pressed together in a pout, but she sank down on the couch beside Millona, twitching and plucking at the fragile silk of her skirts.

Millona leaned into her. "Corvus was about to tell us about Morrowind."

We talked about Morrowind for a little while, a few questions from Lord Goldwine about how the empire's interests in Vvardenfell were progressing, most of which I found I was more than capable of answering, much to my relief.

"And House Dres," he said. "I understand there's some talk about the growing abolitionist movement. Has there been much dissent from the–"

"My mother says the Dunmer have the right idea," Alessia announced.

Millona beside her had gone still. There was a slight tightening of Lord Goldwine's face. Marus gave an uncomfortable little laugh. "And what exactly," he said, "is the right idea?"

"Why, slavery, of course. It's the best way of dealing with the beast-races. Particularly the Argonians. Dirty untrustworthy creatures." Her voice was very high, with an unfortunate tendency to carry. "My mother says," she continued, "the Empire would be stronger if we adopted some of the customs of Morrowind."

"Such as slavery?" Marus said. He was smiling, but there was a brittleness to it. I risked a glance at Millona, saw she had gone pale, her lips pressed together. The knuckles of her hands were white where they knotted together.

"Only of the beast-folk," Alessia said. Her eyes were a little glassy. She was drunk, and there was a rote quality to her words.

I thought of Jobasha, who was the wisest person I'd ever known, bar Calvus, and of everything he had told me about his childhood in Morrowind, about his mother, starved and raped and beaten, how they'd once shaved her fur and ducked her for some minor infraction. How they'd stripped of her every scrap of hope.

And still the little brat was talking. "And it cannot be so very much like slavery, surely. They're not like you and I. You'd understand, Marus, if you lived as close to Black Marsh as I do. If you saw the squalor in which these creatures live. Have you ever been to Bravil?"

"I have," Count Goldwine said. "It's a godsawful place. A damned canker. But you can't blame that on the Argonians or the Khajiit. It's always been a poor town."

"And flooded with skooma, thanks to the Khajiit," Alessia continued. "They destroy us from within. Eroding away everything that the Empire stands for–"

"And you think," Millona said, her voice deceptively soft, so soft I gave her a startled glance, thinking for a moment that she was about to agree with the girl, only to find her face pale and cold and hard as marble and red spots burning in her cheeks, "to counter that with _slavery_?"

For the first time Alessia faltered. The men had responded to her talk with politely dismissive indulgence, but there was genuine fury in Millona's eyes. "I..."

"There was slavery in Cyrodiil once," Millona continued. "The Ayleids enslaved our people, herded them like cattle. Slaughtered them at a whim. Our people, our ancestors, until Saint Alessia led the slave rebellion and defeated them. Saint _Alessia_. Your namesake, Lady Valga. Slavery has no place in the Empire–"

"Except," I said, quietly, "in Morrowind."

Her gaze fixed on me, her lips parted as if she was about to snap at me. Then her shoulders sagged, some of the fire leaving her, and I wished with all my heart that I had not spoken.

"Except in Morrowind," she said, her eyes meeting mine for a long painful moment, until she looked away, lifting her glass to her lips.

Alessia lifted her head, stared at me boldly. "Dance with me," she commanded, holding out her hand.

I shrank back into my chair, momentarily terrified and searching for help. "I... but..."

There was no help to be found. I had been abandoned. Marus looked a little relieved, and Millona had turned towards the count, who had engaged her in conversation about the differences between the wines of Kvatch and Skingrad, a topic very carefully designed to be as far from the subject of Morrowind and slavery as possible. Her voice was carefully composed, stiff and cold as she answered his questions, and her gaze flitted my way as Alessia took my hand and dragged me up from the chair. That's no exaggeration, by the way: she literally dragged me. I knocked the rest of my wine back with a swig, and gave in.

The dance was a wild gambolling thing, and not the slow stately procession I had expected of nobility. Alessia's hair swung out behind her as she spun, laughing and determined, it seemed, to forget the conversation that had just taken place. My head was spinning, and while she pressed herself a little too close, she thankfully seemed little interested in me, her gaze sweeping the room for someone more handsome or wealthy or powerful.

Thank the gods, because I had no interest in her at all. She was still half a child, and even if she had only been spouting the bullshit she'd learned at her mother's knee, I had heard Jobasha's tales about his mother's life, the suffering she had experienced because she had been unlucky enough to be born in Morrowind, far from the deserts of her home, far from their tribe. The more I remembered everything he had told me, the angrier I got, until my jaw was clenched so hard it ached.

An all-too-brief change of partners, and I took a turn around the floor with a flushed matron in my arms. As we parted, she gave me a certain look that piqued my interest, but then it was back to the little brat again, and my jaw tightened still further.

I was not here to steal. And still I could not stop myself; a knot of anger had tightened in my chest. She tilted her head up towards me, her hair slipping through my fingers like the finest silk. Almost an accident then, that my fingers happened to catch on one of the jewelled flowers, enough to loosen the fastening so the jewel dropped into the waiting hollow of my palm. And Alessia did not notice as she spun away, her slippered feet pounding the polished floor in time to the music, and I slipped the flower into a concealed pocket in my sleeve.

Finally the dance ended and Marus approached, and she lost interest in me. The heat of the room was stifling, the noise and the crowd pressing in on me. I escaped to find some fresh air, pushed out through the doors that opened out onto a balcony and found Millona Umbranox, silhouetted against the sky. The sun was setting, the sky a glorious fireburst of reds and yellows, and streaked with smoke from the bonfire on the common.

She glanced over her shoulder, her expression unreadable.

"Master Alviarus."

"My lady." I inclined my head, as gracious as I could be considering how off balance I felt and how weary. The old wound bit and gnawed at my ribs. The smoke in the sky seemed all at once an omen. A bad one.

She looked back out at the town. Her hands resting on the stone balustrade seemed all at once very small and white. "So you do not plan to return to Morrowind, then?"

"Not for a while, no. I have a mind to enjoy Cyrodiil a little longer. You're from Anvil, Marus said? It's a beautiful town." Or so I had heard. Miaran had described it as 'lovely, but boring as fuck', a description which I suspected the daughter of the Count of Anvil might not appreciate. "I only wish I could have stayed to explore it a little longer."

"You should," she said, but her voice was still distant, still cold. "I do believe it is the most beautiful town in all of the Empire. Although..." She hesitated, glancing at me. The first softening. "I must admit I may be biased."

"And yet, from what I saw in the brief time I was there, entirely justified in your belief."

She laughed softly. "Perhaps. Have you been to the Imperial City? Seen the White-Gold Tower?"

"It's hard to miss." I flashed my teeth. "But it does rather make you wonder what the Aldmer were compensating for."

She gave a most unladylike coughing snort, and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Her cheeks reddened, but I could see she was smiling.

"Still," I continued, "I'd like to explore the city a little more. I barely had time to see the sights. And I'm not sure how long I'll have before I'm summoned home."

She glanced at me, her smile fading. "And you don't want to go back?"

I had the disconcerting feeling that she knew all of this was lies, a fanciful tale spun by a fraud and a thief, and she was humouring me. With the breeze warm against my face I found myself watching her again. Not beautiful, not exactly, but her eyes drew me in.

"No," I said, softly. "No, I don't." I hesitated, looking out over the lights of the city. "I'm sorry for what I said in there, My Lady. It was unforgivably rude."

She gave me an odd little look. Her hands shifted on the balustrade, as if she wasn't quite certain what to do with them. And when she spoke her voice was quiet and small and strangely uneven. "It shames us," she said.

"I'm sorry?"

"That slavery is legal in Morrowind. Elsweyr and Black Marsh call us hypocrites that we allow it. That we do nothing to protect our people, citizens of the Empire, from being preyed upon, and they're _right_. It–" She broke off. "I'm sorry, sir. This is neither the time nor the place. I beg your pardon."

"I have a friend who escaped slavery," I said, leaning on the balustrade. She hesitated, then matched my posture. Her arm pressed briefly against my own, until she shifted her position. "He's a Khajiit. He was born in Morrowind, and his mother worked the fields for House Dres."

"And he escaped?"

I nodded. "He intends to return, and he's not alone. From what I hear, the abolitionist movement is growing, gathering strength every day. And if the Empire puts more pressure on the Great Houses to abolish slavery..."

"You think they ever would?"

I shrugged. "I think with an embargo in place on trade, they could be persuaded to at least consider it. And I expect Hlaalu and Redoran might be willing to agree purely to get one over on House Dres. Of course House Telvanni are another matter, but then they always are."

"For such a young man you seem to know a remarkably in-depth knowledge of the situation in Morrowind." She gave me a strange, curious glance. The corners of her mouth had turned down but her eyes were creased at the corners. "If I didn't know better I might think this a masked ball."

"I'm sorry?"

"Since you seem to be wearing a mask and playing a role."

A ripple of unease shivered down from the nape of my neck. She was entirely too close for comfort. I glanced at the indigo sky, where Masser was a ghostly shadow. It was still too light for stars. The balustrade was warm beneath my hands, as if the stone had soaked up all the sunlight, in preparation for winter. I wasn't exactly drunk, but I think if I hadn't had so many glasses of the spiced liquor, I wouldn't have said what I said next.

"I'm a bastard, My Lady, and in company such as this a bastard must always wear a mask. But is there a man here who isn't playing a role of some kind?"

"I may not be able to give you a man," she said at once, "but I dare say I can give you a woman. Lady Alessia."

"Ah. Yes, I'll let you have that one. Bit of a cheat though. How old is she, fifteen?"

"Thirteen."

 _Thirteen? Gods,_ _what the fuck do they feed these nobles while they're children?_

Something of my shock must have shown on my face, because she shot me a wry smile. "She's very precocious. And also a silly, stupid, vapid little fool."

"She's a child. She doesn't understand the matters at hand."

"That _child_ could very well one day be a countess. Could you imagine her in charge of Kvatch? Or Chorrol? Why do you think she's here and not celebrating the harvest with her mother in Leyawiin?"

"She's a little young for her mother to be trying to marry her off, isn't she?"

"You have been in Morrowind too long." She regarded me. This close, I could see the delicate fringe of her eyelashes, tinted dark, could smell the juniper on her breath. She'd had, I thought, just as much to drink as I had. "Welcome," she said archly, "to the life of a noblewoman in Cyrodiil. Her mother's been shoving her at eligible young nobles since she was eight years old."

"Is that why you're here?" The instant I heard the words leave my mouth, I knew they were a mistake. Her cheeks paled, her hands tightening on the balustrade. I expected her to push herself away, to say something cutting, but she only fixed me with a long stare. Her mouth was tight, her eyes shining with a deep well of pain. I cursed myself roundly.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That was none of my business."

She tilted her head back to gaze at the moon. "I should go back inside," she said. Her voice was strange, almost reluctant as if she could imagine nothing worse. "I will have been missed."

And when she glanced at me again the sadness in her eyes had vanished. The tension around her mouth smoothed away as if it had never been there. Her face was as clear and cold as marble, her eyes unreadable. She'd been born to this, schooled to hide her expressions since she was a child. "I expect Lady Alessia may be in need of your services once more. You may be required to dance with her again."

"I'd much rather dance with you."

Of all the reactions she could have given, I hadn't expect her to flinch. She shot a startled look my way, and for an instant the marble flaked away, revealing the woman beneath the mask. Not much older than Lady Alessia, really. A few years younger than myself, and wearing a role that was far too dull for her.

"Another time perhaps," she said, and once more she was cold as a marble statue.

 _Damn_.

"I might just hold you to that," I said, but she was already gone, leaving my pride and my self-confidence a little wounded.

The rest of the night went much as planned. I found Marus again, made the acquaintance of a friend of his: a wealthy merchant and landlord who had made his fortune as much off the backs of the slum-dwellers in the Waterfront as he had through canny investments and trade. And although I was already primed to hate him, I found myself relaxing. This was easy. This I could do.

I seeded the conversation with a couple of throwaway lines about my contacts in Vvardenfell, in particular a certain young disgruntled employee of the East Empire Company, and saw the glint of avarice in his eye. He pressed a little harder, and I obliged, letting him question me, letting him, for want of a better word, seduce me.

(Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words given certain recent events, but a fitting one, nonetheless).

But sometimes even the easiest lay has to play hard to get, and the approach of the matron with whom I had danced provided the perfect opportunity to tease the bastard a little further. To make him hungrier and more eager to snap at the bait when the time came.

I made my excuses, and begged of her a dance, finding the renewed glint of interest in her eyes a sop to my injured pride. Older than me she might have been, but she was warm and plump and welcoming, and could well have provided a pleasantly diverting end to the evening.

And yet my heart wasn't quite in it (although my cock disagreed).

It had been, right up until the moment I saw Millona Umbranox in conversation with Marus Goldwine. Laughing and smiling she might have been, but that expression was nothing but a mask. She was the daughter of a count, raised to bullshit from birth, and was a thousand times better at it than I could ever be.

I let my heart and my cock bicker it out some while I danced a little more, but when the dance ended, I made my excuses and left. I thought Millona might look at me one last time as I left.

She didn't.

~o~O~o~

I knew the moment I opened the door to my room in the inn that something was wrong. The air had been disturbed. The shutters, which I had been certain to close and lock – there's no one in this world more security-conscious than a thief – were hanging open, and the scent of rosemary lingered in the air.

The Fox was here. Hiding, no doubt, as was his wont. The sneaky fucking bastard.

I grinned, and stepped over the threshold, pretending not to have noticed.

The shadows wreathed the edges of the room, and my gaze flicked towards the curtains, partially concealing the open window and providing ample space for a man to hide.

Nothing there.

The room was colder than it ought to have been. It was a warm night, the muggy heat of a storm about to break, but in here it might have been the dead of winter. Goosebumps prickled up my arms.

I took another step.

Something crunched beneath my boot, a shard of ceramic from the bowl that had been on the table beneath the window. Now the table was upturned, the bowl in pieces across the floor. And near the upturned table a body slumped against the wall. A Redguard man, clearly dead.

 _What the_ –

I bent to pick up the shard, and closed my hand around the hilt of the dagger hidden in my boot.

There was a cough behind me. A gasping sound, like someone trying to catch their breath. I stood and turned in one swift movement, jerking the dagger from its sheath.

But there was no one to fight.

Only the Fox sprawled on the bed, her hands clutching at her belly like she was trying to keep her insides from spilling out.

"Are you just going to stand there, idiot?" she demanded. "Or are you going to help me?"


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. All comments are hugely appreciated, including constructive criticism.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen**

 _"Everyone wants to know about the Gray Fox. Gray Fox this, Gray Fox that. He's just a man, not a Daedric lord. I've heard it all. They say he's immortal because he's led the Thieves' Guild for over 300 years. No one has ever seen his face because he always wears that gray cowl. Oh, and speaking of the gray cowl, did you know he stole it from Nocturnal herself? You'd think he was Saint Nerevar the way they talk about him."_

– A stranger

It wasn't the first time I'd had cause to lament my total inability to use magic, nor would it be the last. All the Fox needed was a simple healing spell to patch the worst of the damage, to keep him clinging on, and even that was beyond me. I was a feckless, ignorant, talentless fool, and to make matters worse, I'd used my last emergency healing potion the night before to cure a fucking _hangover_.

And because of that my guildmaster was going to die.

I'd never seen so much blood in my life. And through his splayed fingers, something else: like the gray coils of a snake, folding in and around itself.

It had looked like he'd been trying to keep his insides from spilling out because that was exactly what he was doing. The assailant had ripped his belly open. No mortal man could survive a wound like that.

The landlord and his wife had joined the celebrations, but they'd left behind their gormless son to tend the inn. He gawped at me and looked so baffled when I begged a healing potion I might as well have been talking in Dunmeris.

"Apothecary two doors down," he suggested the second time I asked, and flinched away when I slammed my fist into the wall beside the door-frame hard enough to dent the plaster.

I ran from the inn, and turned the wrong fucking way, only realised when I reached the end of the street and nearly ran smack into a group of revellers. Turned on my heel and sprinted the other way, slipping in a puddle of vomit some fuckwit had left splattered on the cobbles.

The apothecary was a crotchety old bastard, sour and pissy at having been kept up by the noise of the celebrations, and even more sour at my having woken him up, but when he saw my expression, he hurried to provide me with the strongest potion he had. I paid – thankfully I'd had enough sense to grab for my purse – and fled back to the inn.

The Fox was gone, and in his place lay a woman I had never seen before.

My trembling fingers loosened around the potion bottle enough that it nearly slipped from my fingers. I snatched at it, with a skip of my heart that set it to hammering.

The potion wouldn't do her a damn bit of good, because she was dead. What little light there was shone blackly on clothes soaked through with blood. Gods only knew how I was going to explain this to the Watch.

Who the fuck was she? And what had happened to the Fox? Had he thought I had deserted him, and gone to seek help elsewhere?

She had his cowl, clutched tight in her hand.

My heart gave another juddering skip, and I bit my bottom lip as I moved towards the bed and knelt beside her body. My fingers brushed against the felted wool and a prickling sensation surged up my arm, like lightning crackling through my bones. I gasped, and the woman's eyes snapped open. Her hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me close.

"Don't," she growled, her voice by my ear.

I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm sorry. I thought you were dead."

"I'm not that easy to kill."

I jerked my hand away and she slumped back on the bed. I couldn't tear my gaze away from the cowl. "Where'd he go?"

"Who?"

"The Gray Fox."

Her eyes opened again. She stared up at the ceiling, then turned her head slowly to fix her dark-eyed gaze on me. "He said he had somewhere to be. Does it matter?"

"No, I... I suppose not. Only I brought him a healing potion..."

She rolled her eyes. "The Fox is fine, and I'm certain he'll be delighted at your show of loyalty. Albeit perhaps a little irked that you took so damned long in fetching help. However, since that potion seems to be going spare, I could make use of it. Help me up."

I gritted my teeth, and obeyed. She hissed with pain as she sat up and my irritation faded a little. "What happened here?" I asked, looking around at the slumped corpse of the Redguard by the window, while she swallowed back the potion with a grimace.

"A minor disagreement with the Dark Brotherhood."

I went still, turned to look back at her. "They don't exist."

"Most people would say with certainty that the Thieves' Guild doesn't exist either. What does that tell you?"

"That most people are full of shit. But I knew that already. Are you telling me the Dark Brotherhood wants the Gray Fox dead?"

She gave a sound of disgust, and scowled down at the cowl, wringing it as if it were a wet dishcloth. "And we're back to the Fox again."

"You don't like him?"

Slowly, she lifted her gaze to mine. "I loathe him. I'd skin the cunt if I could. Stuff and mount this ugly fucking cowl on the wall and laugh."

She tossed the cowl aside, and pushed herself up. I watched, concerned. Her movements looked stiff and painful as she limped across to the black-clad corpse and knelt beside it to check over the dagger. She gave an oddly prim sniff of disapproval. "No poison. Fucking amateur." When she tried to stand, she gave a soft cry, and fell against the wall.

I went to her, and slung her arm across my shoulder. "You need to rest."

She shook her head. "I need to get out of here. There'll be more assassins coming, and in lieu of the Fox they'll come after me."

"We can hire a coach in the morning. You're too weak to walk." And as for the corpse... Well, we'd explain that away somehow.

Maybe.

"There's no time to wait until morning," she said, speaking as if to a child. "And a coach is too obvious. We'll be dead before we get a couple of miles out of the city."

"So what the hell are we going to do?"

"You're a thief aren't you? So do some fucking thieving. We're going to steal a horse."

"I hate horses. I've always hated horses. And they hate me."

She slumped against me. "That's the thing about animals. They've got more sense than humans sometimes."

And if I hadn't been holding her up, I would have slapped at my heart as if she'd mortally wounded me.

~o~O~o~

Turned out, she had a knack with animals that I lacked. She rested her hand on the horse's muzzle, and aside from her hair stirred by its breath she stood motionless, despite the tension in her body that told me how much pain she was in.

"There now," she said, running her hand over its shoulder. She sounded like a different woman, her voice softer, richer. "You're not going to give us any trouble, are you, my lovely?"

Thirty minutes or so into the ride, I was starting to regret insisting on accompanying her. An hour after that I was in fucking agony. We road south to join the Gold Road, past the lights of the Imperial City shining in the middle of the lake. The White-Gold Tower shimmered like a ghost in the moonlight.

Inside the city you stop noticing it after a while. You lose a sense of the scale, not only of its size but of how ancient it is. How enduring. The entire city could be wiped out, drowned like a nest of ants beneath a bucketful of boiling water, but the White-Gold Tower would endure. It dwarfed the city, making it seem nothing more than like a broken wheel from a child's toy cart, left discarded in the middle of a puddle.

Almost enough to make me forget the agony in my balls.

~o~O~o~

The cottage was located on a bluff, overlooking Whitstone, a quiet hamlet off the road to Kvatch. It was a ramshackle tumbledown building that smelled of damp and mould, but the lock was solid and hard to pick. There were a few scattered belongings, a mouldering apple core discarded atop one of several rotting barrels, and old furred-over footprints in the dust. Enough to show someone stopped by here from time to time, but it hadn't been used in a long while.

"I'll keep watch," I said. "You sleep."

Her lips tightened. I thought she was going to argue, until finally she gave a curt nod, and turned her back on me, stripping off to her undergarments. I did the gentlemanly thing and looked away, sat down on a hard wooden chair, hoping the whole thing hadn't degraded enough to collapse beneath my weight. It creaked a little but held firm. She lowered herself onto the bed, breathing hard.

It took her a long time, but finally her rasping breath gradually deepened into slow even breaths. Either she was asleep, or she was damned good at faking. And I sat on the chair that seemed to grow less comfortable with every passing second, wishing it was cold enough that I had the excuse to light a fire. Even a candle to read by would have done: anything to chase away the gathering darkness. I kept imagining the Gray Fox suddenly lurching from the shadows behind me, the lettering on the cowl glimmering in the darkness.

 _Why'd you desert me, you faithless fucker?_

But that was impossible.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, remembering. The Fox couldn't have the cowl, because _she_ had it. My fingers prickled where I'd touched the wool, and I rubbed them together, trying to rid myself of the sensation.

Perhaps she had stolen the cowl away from him. Or else... Unease prickled at the back of my neck, as I thought about the corpse we'd left abandoned back at the inn.

But he'd been a Redguard. He couldn't be the Fox.

I shifted position on the chair, and gazed longingly at the flat expanse of bed beside the sleeping woman. After hours of hard riding and my balls crushed against the saddle, even that understuffed feather bed would feel the softest and most luxurious in all of Nirn.

 _Yeah,_ I thought, dropping my head back against the wall. _And then she'll wake up to find you next to her and she'll rip your balls off. How comfortable will you be then, idiot?_

I half-swallowed a yawn, rested my boot against the table and tipped the chair back to lean against the wall.

This was going to be a long night.

~o~O~o~

 _It's snowing._

I woke with an involuntary full-bodied jerk. Not in the chair any longer, but a bed, curled up in a nest of heavy blankets, and still I was shivering. The air was freezing cold, so cold it almost seemed to bite.

A room with a garret window and a sloping ceiling, and somewhere below a woman was singing, her voice melodious but the words muffled.

Shivering, I sat up, and the bare feet I set on the rug were those of a child, wriggling toes reddened by cold. I was a skinny little thing again, dressed only in a cotton nightshirt, teeth chattering as I padded to the window, the leaded glass rimed with ice. I knelt on the window seat and wiped at the glass with numbed fingers.

The singing stopped.

 _Don't._

The voice was inside me and behind me and around me all at once. I glanced over my shoulder, saw a woman standing in the doorway.

 _Don't look, Jack._

"That's not really my name," I whispered.

 _It's as good as any. It'll do._ And then, when I turned back to the window, she spoke again, her voice taut with desperation, with fear. _You don't want to see._

My joints stiff and swollen, I fumbled at the catch and swung the window open. Outside the world lay in devastation. Long decayed, blackened ruins of houses sprawled beneath a seething gray sky. No sun, no moons, only the freezing silence and a stench like rotting meat that turned my mouth sour.

Tears froze on my cheeks. I trembled not only with cold but with terror now. "What happened?"

 _Nothing happened. This is what is. What has always been._

"I'm dreaming. This isn't real."

 _You may well be dreaming. But that doesn't make this not real. This is what is. Come away from the window, Jack. He'll see you._

And out there something was watching, fixing its attention on me. And it was so cold it gripped my entire body in a fist of ice. A sob tore itself free from my chest, and I shoved myself backwards, flung myself away from the window, because I knew what was coming I couldn't let it see me–

– _You'redreamingwakeup_ –

Not a dream. Not a dream. Whatever this was, wherever I was, it was too vivid to be anything but real. Out there, nothing but hunger awaited me, ancient hunger and a savage glory in suffering and domination, and I was reduced once more to a shaking weeping boy. So frightened I screamed when a hand was placed on my shoulder. I flinched away from the face of a woman, and although she was beautiful – exquisite features, white-blonde hair – her eyes were filled with terror and they were all I could see. I focused on them, too terrified to look around, while outside something vast and filled with mocking cruelty unfurled by the window.

Whatever it was, it was hungry.

She cupped my cheeks, trying to smile. The sound of thunder. Footsteps coming up the stairs. Hammering on the door.

 _They're coming for you, Jack._

– _wakeupyoustupidfuckingbastardwakeu–_

" _Fuck!"_

I jerked awake, my body wracked with wrenching gasps of terror. A shape loomed over me in the darkness, and I felt the instinct to strike out at it, but recoiled instead, scrambling towards the other side of the bed. The cold still lingered in my bones.

"Corvus, what the fuck–" The voice was unfamiliar.

I froze, still crouched on the bed, and stared at the woman, my heart skittering.

"Corvus," she said again, her voice shaky, "you were dreaming."

 _My name is Jack,_ I thought wildly, and felt the urge to laugh.

"Dreaming," I repeated, numbly. I couldn't seem to gather myself to do much more than that; Everything else seemed entirely beyond me. My heart was still skittering like a mouse who'd narrowly escaped from the paw of a hunting cat. I squeezed my eyes shut an instant, then opened them, flicked my gaze around the wretched room and back to the woman.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

She stiffened. Her eyes darkened, her mouth pressing into a hard angry line. She took a breath, long and slow, as if fighting to control herself, and then she sagged, all the tension draining from her.

"What's wrong?" I asked, alarmed at how suddenly, how completely, the fight had drained out of her. "What did I say?"

"I don't think I can do this any more."

"You don't think you can do what any more? Tell me, maybe I can help."

She stared at me for a long time. And then something – I don't know quite how to describe it – something shifted in the world around me. She stayed silent, and yet at the same time, she seemed to _speak_. Pressure grew inside my skull, a sensation like the beating of a thousand wings, and yet there was nothing in the room but silence and the woman staring at me with something like hope in her eyes. Only for a moment, and then it was pinched out like a candle.

She pressed her hands over her eyes, massaging her sockets with her palms. "I've slept enough," she said. "I'll keep watch now. You get some sleep, Corvus."

I shook myself. The dream was fading, as dreams always do. The feeling of certainty that it hadn't been a dream was now blackened and charred at the edges, crumbling to ash. The woman crossed to the boarded-up window and peered out, but the tension in her shoulders suggested she wasn't really looking at anything, just couldn't bear to look at me any more. I moved towards the bed, and glanced at her rigid back. At first I didn't know what the hell to say until I remembered the old adage: if in doubt about what to say to an angry woman, apologise.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was half-asleep before. Of course I remember you."

She turned, and the cold, hard anger in her eyes made me regret I'd ever spoken. "Well then," she said. "In that case you're the first one who ever has."

I lifted my hands in frustration."I don't understand what you mean."

She seemed to want to say something more, then gave a weary shake of her head, and turned her back on me. She rested her forehead against the boards of the window. "It doesn't matter. Get some sleep."

And I was too tired and sore and broken to do anything other than obey. The moment I laid down my head, the darkness claimed me.

~o~O~o~

I woke to daylight, and to a body that felt like it had been kicked in the balls a couple of times, hauled up to the very top of the White-Gold Tower, dropped from that great height, then pummelled with cudgels for good measure.

"Ow." I lay still for a long moment, squinting at the patch of damp on the ceiling, then tried as an experiment to twitch one of my legs. " _Ow_!"

Gingerly I lifted my head, found the cottage empty with nowhere to hide. Moving like a man well into his dotage, I sat up, and stared at my boots for the longest time, trying to determine if I had the energy to put them on. In the end I didn't bother, and limped barefoot across the packed earth floor to the door.

The morning sun and songbirds assaulted me, the unnecessarily bright, tweety fuckers.

Only a few steps, before I froze in sudden terror at the sound of something large crashing through the undergrowth towards me. Only a domesticated pig from the hamlet, left to forage in the woods, and I laughed in relief as it lumbered out into the clearing and ambled past me to vanish into the trees.

I opened my mouth to call the woman's name, only to realise a fraction of a moment later than I still didn't know what it was. In all the time I'd known her, she'd never told me.

But that couldn't be possible, surely; she must have told me and I'd forgotten. No wonder she seemed so angry with me all the time.

I limped towards the village figuring I could ask someone there if they'd seen her, or failing that as least I might be able to beg a decent breakfast and a mug of weak ale from one of the houses and wake myself the fuck up. A couple of rashers of bacon, with the fat crisped up, maybe some smoked fish if they had a smokery, and there wasn't a village in Cyrodiil that didn't.

There's no surer method than the anticipation of a good meal to chase away a young man's fear, and I was already starting to salivate at the thought, when I realised I'd moved right past the woman.

She was sitting motionless on the rocky bluff overlooking the hamlet. Below lay a small thatched cottage, a pleasant looking sort of place, with smoke rising from the chimney the vegetable garden well laid out in neat rows. Beneath us an elderly woman tended to the chickens, watching over the antics of three children who surely were too young to be hers. Two boys, one about seven, the other a couple of years older, played tag, while a girl of about four years old trailed about after them. The boys shrieked with laughter, wrestling each other to the ground, and I found myself thinking, for the first time in a long while about Nate. What he'd be doing now if he'd lived. If he'd never been stupid enough to be friends with me.

And the woman – my stranger – watched as though enthralled. I studied her, trying to work her out. It was hard to tell how old she was. Nothing about her appearance seemed to tell me anything about her, but she seemed younger in that moment, her knees drawn up to her chest, her chin resting atop them as she watched everything the children did with a hungry intensity.

I hesitated, not wanting to interrupt. It felt like a private moment, and I thought I saw the glint of tears in her eyes.

Only when the children had been ushered inside for breakfast, did she move, lifting her head to look at me. "You look like shit."

"Thanks. So do you." I lowered myself carefully to the ground beside her. "I wondered where you were."

"I just needed some fresh air." She glanced at the cottage, then back at me. "So you came looking for me."

"Actually I came looking for breakfast. Figured I'd keep an eye out for you in the meantime."

"Well, it's nice to know that on your scale of priorities I rank somewhere beneath bacon and eggs."

"I was hoping for smoked fish, but bacon'll do." I was thinking of that pig, left to root for acorns. How utterly delicious it would be.

The faintest ghost of a smile, there for an instant then gone. "The village is off-limits to the guild. We don't go down there."

"Why not?"

"Because I fucking said so, that's why not." She shot me a look. "By order of the Gray Fox. Take it up with _him_ if you don't like it. In the meantime you listen to me. We keep provisions in the shack."

"In one of those rotting barrels?"

"It's not as bad as it looks. It's a safe house. Belongs to the guild. There's dozens of them spread through Cyrodiil. We keep them like that deliberately, stops nosy fuckers from investigating too closely. The food in the barrels is well-wrapped and fine to eat so stop complaining."

"I'd still rather have bacon."

Her eyes narrowed. "I told you..."

"Yeah, yeah. Orders of the Gray Fox. You said. Be nice if he was around to tell me himself." I sighed, tried sitting cross-legged. Thought better of it when my hip joints told me to go fuck myself. "You think he's all right?"

"I'm positive he's alive, if that's what you mean. 'All right' is a relative term."

"S'pose." Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon. I gave the woman a sideways glance. She was staring at the cottage again, where the little girl had wandered out of the door and playing with her doll in the dirt.

I grinned and nodded down towards her. "Getting broody?"

When it came to her I seemed to have a knack for saying the wrong thing.

~o~O~o~

Almost a week we spent marking time in that shithole stinking of rot and decay. Waiting for the woman's wound to heal completely. Waiting for things to settle down.

She was right about the Gray Fox, who appeared without warning on the third day and took charge, dealing with a series of runners from the guild, and some other visitors who were not guild at all.

One was a man of mingled parentage, with a vicious scar that twisted up the left side of his mouth and studded armour that had seen a lot of slaughter. He looked more than the murdering bandit type than a thief. It took everything in me to keep silent while he sneered and stared at her breasts, even as he answered her questions.

And afterwards, the Fox watched me, her boot resting on the edge of the table. "Something wrong, Corvus?"

"Who was he?"

"A friend. That's all you need to know."

"If that's all I need to know, why am I even here?"

The Fox's head tilted. "I thought you were guarding me. I'm hurt, remember? I need your help."

"No, that's not..." I shook my head in a pointless attempt to clear it. _This is wrong. Something's wrong here._ "I thought I was looking after... someone else."

"And who would that be?"

"Her. She says she knows you. She..." I sought her name, struggling even to picture her face, but I could remember her voice: _I loathe her. I'd skin the cunt if I could._ "You know who I'm talking about. She's in the guild as well."

"I'm afraid I don't know," the Fox said, her voice layered with bitterness and spite, but soft as honey. "Remind me, Corvus. Describe what she looks like."

"What?"

"Describe her. You must be able to do that, since you've spent so much time with her. Why, you must be the very best of friends."

"She... Look, this isn't important. Was that man a bandit?"

" _Gods_." The Fox spat the word. "It's like having a nagging wife." She swung her boots off the table, and stood up in one swift movement. "Yes, he was a bandit. He was, in fact, the leader of a group of bandits. Bastards, all. A more vicious bunch of cunts you never did see."

"Is he part of the guild?"

"You know very well that he isn't. Accepting bandits into our ranks would give us a bad name. They're far too willing to kill." She flashed me a sharp-toothed grin. "And the guild, as you know, frowns on killing."

"You can't care that much about it," I said, "not if you're willing to work with him."

"You really don't like bandits much, do you?"

A flash of a memory. An arm clamping around my throat, the smell of blood and sweat and steel filling my lungs, so thick I could taste it.

It made me shudder. "I don't like killers. Or people who prey on those who are weaker than them."

"Well..." The Fox regarded me. "You won't like him much then. He's a killer. And, I suspect, a rapist, as are all his gang, excepting perhaps the women, although you never know. They prey on innocent families, loot and burn isolated farmhouses, and I've even seen one of them kicking a dog. And one day, no doubt they'll all be killed in turn. Strung up, like as not. I doubt it'll be imprisonment for them, except maybe the women if they're smart enough to plead the belly. But considering what's likely to happen to them in jail, I'll expect they'll wish they hadn't bothered."

I stared at her, aghast. "How can you bear..."

"What? To work with them or to be so cold about the future that lies in store?" A one-shouldered shrug. "They're useful. No one knows the roads in these parts better than that particular piece of murdering shit and his gang of thugs. I don't know if you remember, but someone did try to assassinate me, and the Dark Brotherhood don't fuck about."

And despite her casual tone, I detected the slightest quiver in her voice. I fought the urge to shrink away as she came towards me and cupped my cheek with a calloused hand.

"They'll get what's coming to them," she said, "Very short life expectancy bandits, especially in this day and age when just about everyone goes about armed to the teeth. I wouldn't worry your pretty little head."

"My _what_?"

"They're just too stupid and slow to make a living in the guild. They're not so different from you and I."

I gripped her wrist, scowling. "Except that we're not murderers."

And there was silence for a long moment. Beneath the cowl, the Fox's lips curved into a sad smile. Through the dark eyeholes of the hood, those glittering eyes rested on me. Then she gave my cheek a gentle pat with her hand. "Not yet, Corvus," she told me softly. "Not _yet_."

~o~O~o~

It makes me feel like such a fool to write this now, how clear it was in hindsight, how godsdamned obvious, and I wonder that I did not even begin to guess, but such is the power of daedric magic.

Even now as I write this, with the curse broken, I am remembering it wrong. I have false memories where I see the two of them together, the woman sitting silently in the shadows at the edge of the room, and no matter how hard I try to summon an image of the Fox, my bastard of a predecessor, in the first and most powerful image that comes to mind it is always a man who wears the cowl.

He looks a lot like me.

~o~O~o~

And on the fifth night, I woke to the feeling of the bed rocking underneath me and a figure leaning over me, cloaked in shadows, her eyes glittering holes.

"What–"

She clamped her hand over my mouth, and shushed me. The cold air kissed my skin as she lifted the covers and slipped astride me. The kiss was hard and angry, and instinct took hold, my body responding with an urgency I hadn't expected to feel, my hands rising to her breasts.

I never have been good at saying no.

She reached down to adjust me, and suddenly, without warning, I was inside her and she was moving. Rhythmic, violent, little twists of her hips. She leaned forwards, her hair tumbling down around my face, surrounding me with darkness, and the darkness was filled with the surging of a thousand wings. Her breath came in rapid pants, as she ground herself against me, pressing her head into the curve of her neck.

I cupped her backside, pulled her harder onto me, and her teeth clamped down on the meat of my shoulder as she reached her peak. Her movements stilled, her ragged breath slowing, as she sagged on top of me. I gripped her hips and rolled her over, keeping myself inside her. Her legs wrapped around mine, her hips arching up towards me. Her hair spread across the filthy mould-speckled pillow. Ravens' feathers, black as night. Her eyes glittered as I gripped the bed frame, my thrusts frantic, almost hard enough to hurt.

A face flashed through my thoughts, hazel eyes, ash-blonde hair, a brief flash of a genuine smile lingering for a little longer, and I came, gasping. The bed frame squealed in protest.

"Gods." I sagged atop her, drew in a ragged breath, then rolled off. Stared up at the ceiling.

There was no sound from the woman. I glanced at her, uncertainly. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Corvus?" Her voice was soft.

"Yes?"

"Shut the fuck up."

I bit my lip, stared up at the ceiling again. She gave a soft little sigh, and sat up. I watched the curve of her back as she moved to the bucket to rinse herself. A handful of water cupped between her legs. Some women are shy about such matters, but she seemed not to care what I saw, or how I watched her. When she turned, I dropped my head back down, pretended I'd been staring at the ceiling all this time.

"You really think we're safe now?" I asked.

"Safe enough."

I was about to ask about the Gray Fox again but glanced at her and decided I'd better not. She started to dress, pulling a shirt on over her head.

"Are you..." My mouth was so dry, the words seemed to catch. I ran my tongue around my mouth. "Are you coming back to bed?"

She glanced at me, frowning. "Do you want me to?"

"Is that a trick question? Of course I want you to."

This earned me a long hard stare. Then she gave a one-shouldered shrug as if it hardly mattered, and stalked back to the bed, and jerked up the covers. A rush of cold air, and she was beside me again, her body stiff and unyielding as if she didn't quite know what to do. Although from the practised way she'd ground herself against me she'd clearly had plenty of practice at bed play.

 _She used me_ , I thought, the voice quiet and dissenting. But she was silent for a long time, and in the silence it was easy to forget what a complete bitch she was.

Whoever she was, this strange woman, she had been hurt very much. So it was easy, as long as she wasn't speaking, to feel pity for her. To want to offer her whatever aid I could.

She settled into the crook of my elbow, her in the hollow of my neck. Her eyelashes fluttered like butterflies against my skin.

 _Or moths._

I closed my eyes, rested my cheek against her hair. It was lank with grease, and she smelled of sex, of sweat gone sour, and I didn't care a bit. Her hand blindly traced the scar at my side and around, following the trail of hair that led from my belly button downwards. I wanted to sleep, but my body was telling me otherwise.

And I was too stupid to know when to keep my mouth shut and enjoy the silence. "Tell me one thing," I asked.

Her fingers tangling in my pubic hair. "Mm?"

"What's your name?"

She went still. Her hand ceased its explorations, and even her breathing seemed to stop.

"Why?" she asked, and all of the playfulness, all of the amusement, had been stripped from her voice. "Do you think we're going to be _friends_?"

"I didn't..." I started. Stopped. I felt like a man lost in a maze, with a painful and ignoble death lurking down every turn. Instinct told me that whatever I said now would be wrong.

"What?" She rose up, lifting the blankets with her. The cold air rushed in. "You didn't think? No, you never do, do you, _Corvus_?" She spat the name at me, gave a soft bitter exclamation. "Must be nice to pick and choose your name at will. Like it's a fucking _hat_."

And she was up and out of bed, the light catching on the curve of her thigh, before the shadows claimed her. The door opened and slammed and she was gone, leaving me alone in the darkness, sticky and bone-weary and utterly confused.

"Well," I said, my voice sounding very small and quiet in the silence that followed. "Fuck you very much too."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: The usual. Thanks to tafferling for betaing this chapter, and to you for reading. If you're enjoying this, then I would love it if you took the time to leave a comment to let me know.**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixteen**

' _The winter rains had washed through the roads to the south, sending much of the West Weald spilling into Valenwood. The Emperor took the northern route, and King Rislav with a small patrol of guards met him at a low pass on what is now the Gold Road. The Emperor's army, it is said, was so large that the Beast of Anequina could hear its march from hundreds of miles away, and despite himself, the chroniclers say, he quaked in fear._

 _Rislav, it was said, did not quake. With perfect politeness, he told the Emperor that his party was too large to be accommodated in the tiny kingdom of Skingrad._

 _"Next time," Rislav said. "Write before you come."_ '

– _Rislav the Righteous_ , by Sinjin

I went back to Skingrad.

When I found myself in a copse of trees, staring out to where the Shrine of Sanguine awaited me, it felt inevitable. As if every road had been leading me back here. A strange feeling twisted in my chest: a mingled sensation of shame and fear and excitement that made my mouth dry and my cock hard.

But in the end I turned my back on the clearing and on that charming, capricious creature that called itself a god and headed towards the city. I found myself a seat at a bar and set about the task of drinking them dry, but this was Skingrad, Cyrodiil's vineyard, and I doubt Sanguine himself could have emptied that particular vat.

It was dark by the time I wound up at Calvus's door. Despite my best efforts, I wasn't as far along the road to drunk as I'd wanted to be. Or maybe I'd just taken a wrong turning along the way. Plenty of those in my life.

I knocked on his door, stared blearily at him as he cracked it open and peered out at me. "Jack! Are you all right, my boy?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I just..."

He opened the door the rest of the way. There was something knowing in his expression, as if he thought that maybe he knew exactly what I was doing in Skingrad. "Need a bed for the night?"

"Actually, yeah, that would be good, thanks. But that's not why I came. Um..." I broke off, my chest choked so tight with fear I could hardly breathe. Because what if he said 'no.' What if he laughed in my face and slammed the door on me?

Another drink, I thought. Just one extra glass of wine or beer and I might have blotted out that voice of fear. "The thing is, um..." I exhaled a breath and with it came the words, spilling out over my lips before I could stop them. "I don't suppose you have room for an apprentice."

"An apprentice?"

"Yeah. In, um..." I glanced around, but the street was deserted. Even so I lowered my voice. "In forgery."

"Well, naturally," he said, dryly. "No one needs to apprentice to learn how to run a bookshop. Are you sure about this?"

I shrugged. Truth was, I wasn't sure about anything these days. "You said you thought I might be good at it. And I like being good at things."

"It isn't that so much. You do realise the life an apprentice is expected to lead." He gave me a stern look, his eyes darkening. "You'd have to sign a binding oath to avoid alcohol and entering into intimate relations with women until the apprenticeship period was over."

"Well, I suppose that's..." I blinked. "Wait, I would? Really?"

"I'm afraid those are the rules." Then he softened, smiling. "Of a traditional apprenticeship, anyway, but I rather suspect this will be anything but. Come inside, Jack."

"Is that a 'yes'?"

"You seem to have a habit of turning up on my doorstep with interesting suggestions, and I seem to have a habit of taking advantage of them. Hopefully this time you won't manage to get my home burned down."

"I'll try not to. No promises," I said, as I followed him inside. He glanced askance back at me with a glint of pain in his eyes, and I winced. "Sorry, I'm a bit drunk."

"Ah yes. I did wonder what that smell was. I thought perhaps a wine barrel had burst again."

"I mean, I'll really, really try. I swear it, on the Divines and everything I hold dear. And you really won't order me to give up women?"

He glanced back at me again. "If I did would you take any notice?"

"Probably not."

"Well, then."

"It's not like it's my fault I'm so irresistible they can't keep their hands off me."

He rolled his eyes upwards. "And the gods know we can't deprive the ladies of Skingrad the pleasure of your company," he said. "There might be riots."

I followed him up the narrow creaking staircase into a parlour that reminded me so sharply of Bravil it hurt. It was neater, and more orderly, since he had more bookshelves now, and not nearly so many books, but there were still piles of parchment on every surface, and the soft warm glow of a lantern to chase away the gloom.

"Have you eaten?"

I shook my head. I'd had a few slices of toast and dripping in the bar to stem the worst of my hunger and keep me drinking, but nothing other than that. "Don't think I could stomach anything."

"Perhaps a cup of ginger tea? It might help with the hangover."

I considered this, then nodded. Watched as he prepared the tea, the process slow and methodical. I'd seen him do it plenty of times before in Bravil, but somewhere in the midst of the steeping, his shoulders had stiffened. Something was wrong.

He's going to say no, I thought, watching his back. And a cold sensation gripped me: my battered little heart had had about all the rejection it could stand.

"Are you certain about this, Jack?" Calvus kept his back to me as he spoke. His voice was strained, and I knew I was right. He was having second thoughts, rethinking his association with me. Loneliness crushed me into my chair like a fist, and I stared at the flickering light of the lantern, blinking too rapidly. "It's just... It's just it might not be a good idea."

"Oh."

"I don't care for myself, you understand, but... well..." He spoke in fitful starts, his voice strained. "An elderly man and his... his nephew living together. No one's going to believe that particular lie for a moment."

Slowly I lifted my gaze and stared at him. The backs of his ears had gone bright red. _That's it,_ I thought, dazed. _That's all it is. It's not about me._

"And it... well, it could make things difficult for you. Your reputation..."

"My _reputation_." I burst out laughing. Startled, he swung around. "Calvus, I don't have a reputation. Or rather, I do I suppose, but it's not like it could get any _worse_."

He was still flushed brick red, as if it hurt him physically to talk about this, but he kept all but the faintest quiver from his voice. "Jack, people will talk."

"People always do." I flashed a wicked grin. "I'll just have to prove them wrong, won't I? As enthusiastically and as frequently as I can, just to really nail the point home. As it were."

"Hmm." He poured us each a mugful of ginger tea and took a seat, studying me. "You know, there may be another reason why Skingrad may not be the best place for you."

"All that wine?" I said, knew at once I'd got the tone off, a little too casual, and Calvus didn't drop his steady gaze. The heat crept to my cheeks, and I swallowed. Snatched at a change of subject. "Look, if my presence here is a problem, I understand... If it bothers you, if you don't want me staying, we can leave it. Or..."

He gave a jerk of his hand. "I told you I don't give a damn for myself. I'm an old man. I long stopped caring what people say about me."

"I can still find lodgings elsewhere if that'd make things–"

"I'd take that as a personal insult." His fingernail clinked against his cup. "It may make things harder for you, with your... um... women."

I laughed again. "Yeah, that's not how it works. If anything it's the other way around. I've gone out drinking with Min and Jobasha enough times to know that."

He barely reacted to the names, just a flicker of something in his eyes, but that was all. Still it was enough to make my clamp my jaw tight and wish I'd kept my mouth shut.

"Then..." Calvus swirled the ginger tea in his cup for a long moment before he lifted his gaze to mine. He was smiling. "I suppose it's decided."

"You'll take me on?"

"I shall." He gave a mock-sigh. "I only hope you've become a more attentive student since your days in Bravil."

"Yeah, no promises."

~o~O~o~

He was the finest master I could have asked for, and I only wish that I had been a less indifferent apprentice. The work itself was fascinating: I'd never known there were so many different grades of paper, or types of ink, or methods of forming even the basic letters of the alphabet, but sadly my own handwriting left much to be desired. Most business in the guild was transacted through verbal agreements, and most communication through beggars and runners, so I'd had little opportunity to practice my hand, and my letters were malformed and shaky.

A fair few months passed before Calvus judged my writing to have improved enough to attempt to forge his signature, and then I realised how difficult the task I'd taken on: that it wasn't only the lines of the ink I had to master, (and that was hard enough) but the movements of my arm and hand, the way my fingers gripped the quill.

I learned the art and craft of forgery, but slowly. And if Calvus was irritated by how easily my mind wandered, he didn't show it. He was glad of the company and of the extra coin that I brought in. And while he was never anything other than a perfect host and a patient kindly master, I think... and how do I put this... he rather enjoyed the presence of a handsome young man knocking about the place.

And in the meantime I wrote shaky letters to Min and Armande. Even a couple to Marus, apologising for my sudden absence. Some business that couldn't wait, I explained. I wasn't ready to let go of Corvus Alviarus altogether, and I doubted the Fox would want to either. Far too much effort had gone into his creation, and I confess I was rather fond of him. Besides, I liked the name. 'Jackdaw' was fine for a street-rat, but less than dignified for a young Imperial in fine silks and linens.

They wrote back – all three of them. Marus assumed the business involved a woman, and I let him. Safer that way.

Min's letters were always a profligate three sheets long, his elegant joyful handwriting sweeping across the paper, packed with tales of his wild exploits, the less-than-legal ones couched in careful euphemisms and thieves' cant. Never once did his letters fail to make me laugh, sometimes so hard I'd choke on my buttered toast at the breakfast table, while Calvus poured tea and suppressed a smile.

Armande's letters were shorter, and briefer, the ink smudged where the blade of his palm had swept across the paper. His thoughts were stilted and half-formed, because he didn't know how to best go about putting his words to paper, full of blotches and crossings-out and misspellings. He was in deep with Sam now, and that didn't surprise me at all. He was reliable in a way that I wasn't: solid, stolid and trustworthy. He did the dull jobs. The bread and butter jobs. The jobs that were easy, but paid poorly, and which the cockier thieves thought themselves above. While my progress up the ranks of the guild was fitful, Armande's was slow and steady, and his work, and Miaran, kept him busy, and each letter I received, made me miss him more.

If Min's letters made me laugh, Armande's letters made tears prickle at my eyes. It was like an ache in my chest, how badly I missed him, twisting deeper with every passing day.

~o~O~o~

Skingrad was a fine city, wealthy and prosperous, with its cobbled streets lit with watchlights winking to life at dusk, necessary since the stately stone buildings that bordered the streets meant that little light filtered through to the streets. It was a city of gloom and shadow, of old money and stately homes and families that had made their money through trade.

I was predisposed to dislike the count for how absent he was, but unlike the count of Bravil, it was clear Count Hassildor cared very much for the well-being of the citizens of his town, providing a free school for the children of the poorer families to be educated and making charitable provision for the inevitable beggars.

I only ever met the man once, a few months into my marriage to Millona. He had begged off attending our wedding, which neither Millona nor my father-in-law had been surprised by, but some time afterwards Millona and I travelled to Skingrad to dine with him. He proved a cordial and attentive host, but seemed a taciturn man by nature, and although the food and drink had been the finest I'd ever tasted, he'd barely picked at it. I could tell he wanted us gone as quickly as possible, that our company, as pleasant as it might be, was something he felt he had to endure.

After dinner, I'd stood by the fireplace, studying the portrait of a beautiful woman above the mantel, while Millona picked out a tune on the harpsichord. Hassildor approached me and handed me a glass of brandy, his keen eyes shifting away from me and up to the portrait, where they lingered.

"My wife," he said.

"She was very lovely, Your Grace. I'm sorry for your loss."

Without pausing in the gentle music she was playing, Millona cast me a warning look as I raised the glass of brandy to my lips: _We're leaving soon,_ that look said. _Don't get shit-faced._

His eyes glittered, catching and reflecting the light of the fire as he studied his wife's portrait. Fine lines were threaded around his eyes, and he looked very tired, but he still seemed a much younger man than I had expected. Some magic users do age slowly, and rumour had it he'd been a powerful mage in his time. Now he seemed only weary, a man mired deep in mourning, although almost thirty years had passed since he'd lost his wife. I looked over at Millona, at the light from the chandelier catching in her hair, and thought how my heart would ache if I ever lost her.

"It's a strange thing," Count Hassildor said, and an odd note made me look back at him. He was smiling, a twist of his lips that was more bitter grimace. His teeth were very white. "At times it feels as if she never left at all."

~o~O~o~

My early attempts at forgery were mediocre at best, but I got better, forging letters of recommendation for servants who'd been cast off with nothing. Easy enough, since new employers rarely bother to check. From there, we moved onto forging promissory notes and Bills of Exchange. And there were other more complex scams, such as the job we pulled involving the sale of an estate to four separate buyers, all of whom tried to take possession on the same day.

Being a thief in the winter is a hard life, but the life of a forger is a far cushier one. When the storms wail like angry spirits through the streets, rattle at the shutters with icy fingers, you're safe inside, cosy in a well-lit room, with the tools of your trade spread out about you, paper and ink, and stained fingers.

It was harder in summer, when Calvus would roll his eyes up to Aetherius as my gaze shifted back towards the sunlight streaming in through the window. On days like this the mercenaries from the Fighters' Guild would take to the courtyard to spar, and the idle woman of the town would sit in the sun and watch, shoulders bared to the warmth of the sun. With their blood heated, and the mercenaries distracted, it was the perfect opportunity for a handsome young sneak-thief to idle along and snatch away their ill-guarded hearts.

The streets of Skingrad were usually cool, even in high summer, the stone buildings soaking up most of the heat, but from time to time a swelteringly hot day would descend, and the heat would thicken the air to treacle. On days like that, Calvus and I left the city altogether and took a tour of the local wineries. While Calvus vanished inside to sample some wines and make a purchase – now that he had me contributing to his coffers, he could afford to be profligate – I'd linger outside, watching the woman trampling grapes in a shallow bucket. Their bare feet were stained with the juices of the grapes popping between their toes. And perhaps one of them might smile at me, pulling up her skirt a little further: a flash of calf, a hint of knee. And afterwards, I'd do some crushing of my own, up against the back of the winery, the taste of wine on both our lips and her skirts yanked all the way up around her hips.

And if occasionally, I dreamed of the Shrine of Sanguine, of a bed of roses, of my hands pushing deep into black hair and fastening around horns, of fingers clawing down my spine, and the aching sensation of filling and being filled all at once, of sinking into a bed of flesh and roses, of teeth and tongues and lips on every inch of my skin, opening my mouth for the sweetest nectar imaginable, well, what of it?

~o~O~o~

It couldn't last forever.

I loved Calvus dearly, but we both knew I wasn't going to stay. Skingrad was a fine city, but it wasn't home. I felt strange there, disorientated; I'd take a turn down a street I'd never been down, and feel the certainty grip me that I'd been there before in a past life. Even on warm days, its streets were cold and gloomy, clean but impersonal. It was a city of stone and shadow, and I could never call it home. I missed the Waterfront. And most of all, I missed Armande.

After a year I took a trip to the Imperial City to visit friends and transact some guild business, and it was like rising to take a breath after swimming for too underwater. We went drinking for two days straight, spent another day and a half recovering, lounging around the bath house, sweating out the alcohol through my pores so we could do it all over again that night. Returning to Skingrad felt like redonning filthy clothes after a bath. Even with Calvus welcoming me back, I knew that my apprenticeship would soon be coming to an end.

No doubt it would have ended sooner than it did, if not for Millona. All through that long year, I had listened with interest to whatever gossip I managed to glean about the Count of Anvil's daughter, and I knew she had plans to visit the city, that she dined with the count from time to time. I never quite managed to forget about her over the months that passed: that lovely face, her eyes sharp and intelligent and veiled to hide her sadness. How she'd seemed set apart from the rest of the company, isolated and lonely. So very unhappy.

I daydreamed about her, and found her face flashing through my thoughts at the most inopportune moments – always awkward to find yourself picturing one woman when you're buried to the hilt inside another.

I watched her from the balcony of Calvus's house as she rode past to the castle, the hood of her riding coat pushed back so she could tilt her head back to catch the last rays of the sun. My heart caught in my chest. I stared after her, my head propped on my hand.

"Do you reckon she'll marry him?" I asked Calvus.

"Who?"

"The Lady Millona. And Count Hassildor."

"I should think that highly unlikely. The Count's an old man. And Lady Umbranox is... Well, she can't be more than, what, twenty-two?"

"She's twenty," I said, and he glanced up sharply at that. My cheeks warmed. I was too embarrassed to look at him, but I knew he was smiling. Abruptly, I shoved myself away from the balcony: not like Millona would suddenly wheel the horse around because she'd recognised the young man gazing down from a balcony like a lovestruck fool. Seemed a bit unlikely now that almost a full minute had passed. "Young girls marry old men all the time. S'politics. Pass us the wine."

Calvus raised an eyebrow but slid the bottle across the table towards me. "Ah, but it's different for her. She's the heir to Anvil, now that her brother has passed on, gods rest his soul. She doesn't need to marry for wealth or power, since she has plenty of both, and the Umbranoxes always have been a law unto themselves. She can pick her husband herself. The count is... well, he seems an unlikely husband to say the least, and he's still in mourning for his wife."

I ran my thumb around the rim of my glass. "Marus Goldwine, then. He's about her age. And they've been friends a long time." Since they were children, the rumours said. And those same rumours had it that they'd been secretly betrothed just as long, virtually since they were babies.

"Now that seems far more likely," Calvus agreed. "Handsome young man, that young Lord Goldwine."

I grunted. "He's not a lord."

"Or perhaps she won't marry a noble at all. Perhaps she'll pick her husband from the rank and file, eh? A commoner?"

I grinned and knocked back the glass of wine. "Maybe even a thief?"

"You never know."

I kept grinning, until the heady vision started to slip, and my good humour faded. "I fucking well do," I said. "Gods, she's lovely though. Whoever she ends up marrying, he's a lucky bastard."

"Will all the seducing you do, I'm surprised you haven't gone after her yourself."

I shook my head, snatching up the bottle of wine. "Never been all that interested in virgins."

"That's very noble of you, Jack."

"Nobility's got fuck all to do with it." I poured us both a glass, my aim only a little sloppy: I was concentrating. He watched me pour, frowning, and I knew what he was thinking – how fast I'd been drinking that night. It had taken a while, but I'd finally come to my decision, and it had gnawed and bit at my conscience all through our meal together. Our conversation, usually so easy and flowing, had been stilted. Even a fool couldn't have failed to notice that I was distracted, and Calvus was no fool.

"It's too much trouble." I said, to silence the gnawing bitter voices. "And for too little reward. Why should I waste my time trying to coax a flinching innocent, when instead I could have a woman who knows what she's doing, and that she likes it? I'm happy to educate women in the act of love, but I'd prefer they know a little of the basics beforehand, if you know what I mean."

He raised an eyebrow. "I know that you're a liar."

"Not about this." I swallowed down the wine, and felt the dry sensation itching at my tongue and at the roof of my mouth. It made me thirst for more. "All thieves are lazy. If we weren't, we'd get proper jobs."

"And you lie more to yourself than to anyone else." He sighed. "Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"

 _Damn it._ I brought the glass to my lips, found it empty. Flicked my gaze towards the bottle again, but Calvus still had a full glass before him. He'd barely touched his.

"I'm going back to the Imperial City."

He nodded, as if that was exactly what he'd expected. "Any idea when?"

"I don't know. Probably soon, but... I didn't want to go without, you know, finishing up here. After everything you've taught me... I, um..." Blinking too rapidly, I leaned forward to grab the bottle of wine. He picked it up before I could get it, indicated that I should hold my glass out. Only he poured me too little, and I watched it with a thirst that burned all the way down my throat and into my gullet. Not enough. Not _enough_.

"You know I've loved having you stay, Jack. I never... well, for one reason or another I never married. It wouldn't have felt right, damning a woman to something less than half a marriage... Perhaps, if I could have found a woman who understood, but..." He shrugged. "No marriage and no children either. It's something I've come to terms with, but it can make for a lonely life." He paused, studying the dark liquid in his glass, swirling it slowly. "It's one thing for the Mer, for Minelcar and his ilk, but for men like us... we age too fast. A blink and our lives are half-over. Another blink, and we're little more than dust."

"Are you..." My voice croaked. I swallowed. "Are you trying to persuade me to stay?"

"Actually I was trying to do the exact opposite."

"Well, it's not bloody working."

"Ah. Then I beg your pardon. I'm afraid I'm a little drunk." He swirled the wine some more, and considered. "Your fault. You're a fine young man, Jack, but you're a terrible influence. If you stay much longer, I'm afraid my liver won't be able to cope."

"Well, in that case I'd better be the one to finish off the sodding wine then."

He watched as I drew the bottle closer, topped up my glass, shook his head when I made to top up his. My grip tightened around the neck of the bottle with something like relief. And as I drank, he said nothing, only watched me, his eyes sad.

~o~O~o~

My homecoming to the Imperial City was rather more subdued than I'd expected. There was a piss-up in the Rat, but little more than that; Sam and Armande had been busy in my absence, and the guild was thriving. Seemed like everywhere I looked, I saw new faces, and there were plenty of fine thieves ready and willing to step into the gap I'd left behind, and to my chagrin, fully able to fill it.

Sam was distracted by difficulties with one of his fellow Doyens who usually worked eastern Cyrodiil. A few fights had broken out between a couple of gangs. Little more than isolated spats, wildfires that never quite caught and could be stamped out with ease, but it meant Sam didn't have the time to spare for a bored, restless boy demanding his attention.

"So you haven't heard from the Fox."

"For fuck's sake, Jack. Not now."

"But–"

"No." He glared at me. "I haven't heard from him. Not for months at least."

"You don't think something might have happened to him."

He gave a grim smile, and turned his attention back to the notes on the desk. "I fucking wish something would happen to rid us of the bastard. Some fucking guild master he is."

He threw a couple of jobs my way, but they were little more than sops to keep me quiet and busy. In lieu of anything to do I put my forgery skills into work, and set up a few small scams forging promissory notes, but without Calvus to chivvy me on it proved tedious work. I'd spent half my time in Skingrad missing the Imperial City, and now that I was here I found myself missing Skingrad again. I didn't seem to fit in either place, and it made me wonder if I would ever be truly happy anywhere.

Some evenings I'd find myself at the Arena, swept along by the pushing crowds, and like them I'd be caught up in the rising tide of excitement: gleaming eyes, and laughing women, occasional speculative glances cast my way, secretive smiles that I might or might not return depending on my mood. I usually did.

And once the face that I noticed in the crowd was one that was almost, but not quite, familiar, and the deliberate pressure of a thigh against my own on the crowded bench spoke to a part of me too simplistic to be touched by daedric magic.

Below in the pit, the blue team fighter who had so far been losing parried the favourite's winning blow, and turned the tide of the battle. With the rich voice of the Arena announcer echoing around the amphitheatre, a voice on which I admit I partially modelled my own, it was impossible to avoid getting caught up in the surging excitement. As one the crowd rose, caught in a frenzy of desire and bloodlust. In the confusion, her body pressed against my side and she whispered something in my ear I couldn't catch over the roar of the crowd.

I got the gist.

No bed this time. Nothing but Pluckrose Alley, stinking of piss. Hands braced against the wall, and my teeth leaving marks on her shoulder. Her kissing me like she hated me. We were never gentle, neither one of us.

And sometimes she carried word from the Fox and sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she spat his name like she hated him. Sometimes she was weary, and looked at me as if I was a moron when I asked if she had work for me. She never stayed for long.

~o~O~o~

She had a job for me, something on behalf of the Fox. The details aren't important, but the job brought us back to Whitstone, and we ate a meal of bread and cheese, looking out over the settlement in silence. I watched a man riding up to the hamlet. He was Imperial, past middle-age, but solidly built, and he carried himself like a soldier. His face was painfully familiar.

I frowned, squinting at him. "I've seen that man before somewhere," I said. "I'm sure I have. I just can't... Damn, where do I know his face from?"

The woman shifted restlessly. "Does it matter?"

I sighed, glaring at him as if my inability to place his face were a personal insult. "I don't like not knowing. It irritates me."

"What, that you can't place where you know someone from?"

"Yeah." I shot her a meaningful look. "Or maybe it's because I don't know his name."

"Godsdamn." She rolled her eyes. "Not this again. Does it really matter that much to you, knowing my name?"

"Not really. It hurts a bit that you don't trust me enough to tell me."

"Yeah, well. Don't take it to heart. I don't trust anyone."

The man below had vanished inside the cottage. Their father, I guessed. Some noble, whose face I'd seen around the city, paying his annual visit to his bastard-born brats. Maybe I'd even picked his pocket in the market. It hardly mattered. I swung towards the woman instead. "Does anyone in the guild know who you really are? What about Sam? Does he–"

She shook her head. "Not even Sam. No one knows."

"But the Fox. He must–"

I broke off at the noise she made, something between a sob and a groan and laughter. "Gods, the fucking Fox. I'm so sick of that bastard." She spread her hands. "Okay, fine. The Fox knows what my name truly is, and much good may it fucking do him."

"Why do you hate him so much? Did he... Did he do something to you? Because if he did, you know you only have to tell me. Guildmaster or not–"

"And what would you do, Jack? Against a man like the Gray Fox? Not that I don't appreciate the show of chivalry." She sighed. "As it happens, he did do something to me, but it wasn't anything I didn't ask for. Only I didn't know what I was asking for at the time."

"What the fuck is this, a riddle contest? Why can't you just tell me straight–"

She threw her chunk of bread at me, too quick for me to dodge. "Maybe because it's none of your fucking business."

And afterwards, wedged into the cold small bed, having done our best to cover the stink of mould with the smell of sex: "You do know you can trust me, don't you?" I told her. "And I meant what I said about the Fox. I worry about you."

"Worry about yourself."

"I mean it. I know I don't always seem like it... it's hard, you make it hard, but I do care about you."

"Aww." She tilted her head towards me. "You think you're falling in love with me."

"I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all. I just..."

"Jack." She sighed, rolled towards me. "You're young."

"You're not that much older than me—"

"Actually that isn't true. I'm old enough to be your mother, but shut up and listen for a moment. You're young. You play at being a womaniser but the truth is you're the sort of foolish fanciful boy who makes moon-eyes at anything he puts his cock in more than twice. I'm surprised you're not making kissy-faces at your fist when you think no one's looking. You're not falling in love with me, idiot. Whatever this is, it's nothing like love." She paused, studying me. "Who is she?"

"Who's who?"

"The woman you think about when you're fucking me."

I stared at her, heat rising to my cheeks. "That's not... I'm... I don't–"

She laughed and laid her hand on my chest. "No need to stammer so. It's not like I'm thinking about you."

My heart pricked with hurt. "You're not?"

She shot me a strange hooded look, then twitched up one shoulder. "Point is, you don't love me. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, and if you did, you'd hate me."

"Ah, now, that's where you're wrong." I nuzzled her neck. "I know plenty about you."

"Oh?" She shifted, allowing me more access to her throat. A soft sound in the back of her throat. "Well, go on then. Tell me something about myself." There was the hint of mockery in her voice.

"You grew up rich. And this front you're putting on it's as much a mask as the Gray Fox's cowl. You're not used to swearing. You have to force yourself to do it, and it kills you a little inside each time you have to say 'fuck' or 'cunt'." I drew closer to her, murmured that last word in her ear, with heat in my voice.

She stiffened . "How did you–"

"And I'll bet you had a pony when you were young, didn't you? Some well-tempered little pony happy to trot along with a child on its back, with a name like 'Toffee' or 'Buttercup'. Am I right?"

"It was 'Honeynut.'"

"Hah! I knew it." I paused, frowning. "You weren't nobility though. Your accent is a little too perfect, a little too polished. Wealthy merchants, I'd reckon. Maybe only a few generations in, but climbing the slippery-runged ladder."

"My father's father made his fortune in the wine-trade." Her lips twisted. "Lucky guess."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. You know the truth really." I rolling on top of her with ease. Placed a knee between hers, and gently nudged her legs apart. This time, I thought, I was going to make damn sure the only man she thought about was me.

She let her legs fall open, welcoming me into the cradle of her body."Oh? And what's the truth, Jack?"

"That I'm fucking brilliant," I said, and slid myself inside her.

~o~O~o~

I spent a lot of time in the Rat in the Dark in those days, nodding to those I recognised. Swapping stories and rumours of interesting shipments, and buying each other ales, and making connections. Getting the feel of the guild again, how it shifted from one day to the next, the lie of the land never quite the same. It could be dangerous if you weren't used to it. Treacherous.

Armande was off on business for Sam. Some job off in Hammerfell that needed a Redguard who wouldn't look out of place on a ship, and Armande was his father's son, even if he hated the bastard. I missed him, and I was in a melancholy sort of mood: thinking about Armande set me to thinking about Elise and Brey. How badly I missed them, even Brey.

Smoke wreathed around the tables, shrouding faces from view. A muffled burst of laughter rose up from one of the other tables, quickly stifled, but one of the thieves kept laughing, pressing his hands over his mouth while his shoulders shook and his friend sat back in his chair and grinned.

I nodded to Nico, who was sloping past with a couple of his associates. He was guild now, thanks to me: I'd put a word in for him with Sam, got him an in. He was a mediocre thief and pickpocket, but he was fast enough on his feet to make a decent runner. He nodded back, shrugged nonchalantly as his associates looked at him with new-found respect. And I sat smugly back in my chair, my melancholy easing away.

Always a pleasure to know you can command respect.

The early evening crowd was starting to disperse, leaving those who were in it for the long haul. I'd reached that pleasant level of drunk, and was wondering whether I should knock it on the head and try to mitigate the morning's hangover or if I should stay for one more. In the end I stayed for three.

I left with Min and Claudine, the innkeeper drawing back the heavy bolt so we could stumble out into the night. Min was laughing, his arm slung around Claudine's back, and I watched how she lifted her gaze towards him, her eyes warm. As we walked along the cobbled streets back to Min's place in the Elven Garden District, they told me about their latest scam – something involving a nobleman who was obsessed with practitioners of the Dibellan arts – and Min started laughing again as Claudine turned towards me, running her hands down over her dress. "What do you think, Jack? Do I look appropriately virginal?"

"By the Nine." Min hugged her from behind, and she gave a wild shriek as he spun her around and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Maybe we're pushing it with virginal, no?"

"Hark who's talking. Considering you fuck just about anything that moves." She grinned up at him, and Min gave a shrug of acknowledgement, a lazy smile. "Anyway, I was asking Jack." She wriggled free and came towards me.

I leaned against the wall, holding up my hands in defeat. "I'm not getting involved."

But she came closer still, and it was far too easy to slide my hands around her waist and draw her in for a kiss, until she pulled away, and leaned back, my hands resting loosely on her waist.

"Well?" she asked. "Would you describe that as a virginal kiss?"

I frowned. "Umm... Not sure. Give it another go."

And we kissed again, slower, more lingering, while in the back of my head a face sprang to mind – ash-blonde hair and hazel eyes, a half-hidden smile.

"Virginal's not the word I'd use," I mumbled, when the kiss was over, because I knew she was expecting something. "Look, Claudine..." I wasn't sure what I was going to say and I never got the chance, because Min had hooked his arm around her waist and was pulling her away from me.

The three of us stumbled through the arch, drunkenly shushing each other as a guard glowered at us. And Min broke off, mid-sentence, his smile freezing on his face. He hissed through his teeth, muttered, "Gods," under his breath.

Instantly we were all on edge.

My hand moved to the dagger at my belt as I followed his gaze. Across the square a cloaked figure came towards us. As she passed beneath the watchlight, I saw she was an Altmer, the light catching on golden hair arranged in elaborate braids. She bore a passing resemblance to Min: they had the same sharp cheekbones and same slanting eyes, which flicked between the three of us with nothing but contempt. Min stood frozen, his hands clenched into trembling fists.

I touched his shoulder, and he shuddered at my touch. "Min, what's wrong?"

His gaze darted my way. Something that might have been terror flashed in his eyes. He shot a glance at the Altmer woman, almost as if he'd been hoping she was nothing more than a hallucination.

"Min."

He drew a breath, and the fear in his face smoothed over. It was replaced with a smile that was pure Min, bright and brittle, charming and very slightly mocking.

"Jack, Claudine, may I introduce my cousin, Geredwen." He gave a shallow bow. "I wish I could say it's good to see you, cuz, but I'm too drunk to lie tonight."

Contempt twisted the Altmer woman's lips. "And I wish I could say you've changed, but clearly you're still the same decadent wastrel you always were."

Min's smile turned savage. "I never fail to enjoy being reminded what a failure I am. Always a delight. Did you actually want something, cuz, or did you just come here to insult me?"

"I came to bring you home."

"Well..." He gestured to the door across my street. "That's my home, so congratulations, you've accomplished your mission. Seems rather pointless to have come all this way for something I could have managed perfectly well on my own." His posture was taut. Claudine caught hold of his arm, and stood on tiptoes to whisper something in his ear. He listened, but his gaze remained fixed on Geredwen.

She lifted her hands in a conciliatory let's-not-fight gesture. "This is a family matter, Minelcar. Not something to be discussed in front of outsiders."

"'Outsiders.' That's unexpectedly polite coming from you. And this is the heart of Cyrodiil, cuz. We're the outsiders here."

Her eyes darkened. "I'm trying to be civil–"

"And doing a piss-poor job of it."

"Gods," she hissed. "You haven't changed, have you?"

"By Talos, _no_. And I never plan to." He pushed his hand through his hair and seemed to come to a decision. He glanced at me. "You two go on. I doubt this will take long."

Claudine frowned. "Are you sure? We can–"

He caught her hand, kissed the knuckles. "Go. I mean it. She's right, whatever this is it's family business, Divines help me. Go. I wouldn't want to subject you to my cousin's company for any longer than necessary."

And because we weren't sure what else to do, we left. Claudine kept glancing back over her shoulder, craning her neck as if she could see them, even after they'd both vanished inside and we'd turned a corner and the door to his house was out of sight.

"Did you know her?" I asked.

She shook her head, her arms tight across her chest, her mouth a miserable line. "But I know he doesn't get on with his family. He ever tell you about them?"

"I don't think so. Not unless I was so drunk I can't remember, which is actually a definite possibility. Why?"

"He's not told me much either. He's too private–"

I snorted. "'Private'? Min?"

"About some things, yes." She thumped my ribs with her elbow. "How long have you known him now? Five years?"

"Something like that. More or less. Probably closer to seven now."

"And what do you actually know about him? What's he ever told you? About where he grew up? Who his family are? Whether he has any brothers and sisters?"

"Virtually nothing," I admitted. "He doesn't get on with his family?"

"Not that I know that much myself," she said, "but that's the understatement of the era."

"You want to go back?" I asked, quietly.

She thought about it for a long moment, sucking in her top lip before she finally shook her head. "I doubt he'd thank us for it. And he can take care of himself."

I started to turn away, hesitated, then turned back towards her. "You should tell him how you feel, you know."

She gave me a tight smile. "I don't think I'm really his type."

"Not like I haven't seen Min with women. I know he's usually more, y'know, the other way inclined but..."

"Human ones?"

"What?"

" _Human_ girls, Jack. Have you ever seen Min with a human girl?"

"Well, yeah, I..." The question had startled me. I thought back, remembering the Altmer at the shrine of Sanguine, back when I'd got to know a Daedric Lord rather more intimately than perhaps I ought to have done. A mage at the University he met with from time to time. And slowly, a pattern began to form. "They were all elves..." Claudine watching me, waiting, and the pattern sharpened further, so clear I could have kicked myself for not having noticed it straight away. Every woman I'd ever seen Min with, every single one, had been a high elf. And I hadn't even noticed. "They were all Altmer," I said slowly.

She nodded, looking miserable. "That's what I figured. Don't say anything to him, Jack. I don't think he even realises."

"But why... I don't get it. It's not like he's fussy or anything. Not when it comes to men. I think he's even thought about seducing me a couple of times and he knows where I've been."

She stopped, and stared at me.

 _Shiiiit._

"I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't talking about you."

"No?"

"I meant..." A bed of roses. The taste of brandy and salt on my tongue. My back almost black with bruises. Now there was an alleyway I didn't want to venture too far along. "I didn't mean you. I didn't mean anyone really."

And finally, thank the gods, she took pity on me. "You mean you've been around," she said, grinning.

"Exactly. If my love life was the Red Ring Road I'd be halfway to Hammerfell by now."

"And if only you were," she said, and I slapped my heart as if she'd mortally wounded me.

I walked her back to her house, ran the usual gauntlet of her mother, who adored me, clucking about how I'd lost weight, hadn't I been eating, and wouldn't I come in for supper, while Claudine smiled wearily at me from behind her mother's back.

We parted ways with naught but a kiss on the cheek and I wound my way back to the Waterfront District, a slow circuitousness route, letting the cool air clear my head. Across the bridge that led to the Waterfront, the misty rain gathered around the watchlights, and the sound of the water lapping against the bridge eased my nerves.

All was peaceful as I took a sharp turn down a dimly lit alleyway, moving deeper into the warren of ramshackle houses and lean-tos that made up the Waterfront District's slums. I caught the whiff of a burning skooma pipe, heard the soft breathy cries of a woman spending as I moved past a window with a broken shutter. The grin crept back, but as I reached my shack, a shadow on the roof shifted. I froze, my heart jittering in my chest, until the shadow hissed my name.

It was Min.

I set my boot into a crevice in the wood and boosted myself up onto the roof. Min sat slumped back against the cold chimney pipe, one leg stretched out. He lifted a bottle of ale. "I brought alcohol."

"I can see that, although it looks like you've drunk half of it already. What are you doing here? How'd it go with your cousin?" I hesitated. "Were you waiting for Jobasha?"

"I was waiting for whoever came. And as for my cousin..." He trailed off, eyes closing. Swallowed hard. I settled down and felt the shingles shift ominously beneath my weight. Even the shacks in Bravil had been built with more care.

"Where is she?" I asked. "Did you manage to turf her out?"

"Not exactly. I told her I was going to change, went into my bedroom, and climbed out the window. I expect she's still there now, cursing my vain nature. She's not that bright."

"Everything all right?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and flashed me a hard grin. "My mother's dying."

"Oh. Shit." I searched for something to say. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. She was an awful woman. You would have hated her, and the world will be a much better place without her in it." But there was a brittle quality to his voice; the hardness was only a veneer, and its surface laced with cracks.

"Yeah, but still..."

He took another swig. "They want me to come back to Alinor. Be the dutiful son and say my goodbyes. Or let her say hers to me, which I'm sure will be nothing but an itemised accounting of every way I've ever failed her in excruciating detail. That's probably the only thing keeping the old witch alive at the moment." He toyed with the neck of the bottle, glanced at me. "I thought you'd be with Claudine."

"Well... Not really in the mood."

"Fuck me. Are you feeling all right? When are you ever not in the mood?"

I watched a moth, batting at the glass of the lantern outside the nearby house. "Are you going to go back? To the Isles, I mean?"

"Fuck no." He closed his eyes. "I mean... I don't want to, but..."

"She's still your mother?"

"Yeah."

"I always assumed... I mean, I guess I never realised you had family. You never talk about them."

"There's a reason for that," he said, dryly. "We're not close. At all."

"Not the favoured son?"

"Gods." He gave a bark of laughter. "Now there's an understatement. No, my cousin was right,. As far as they're concerned, I'm a traitor to my race."

"Because..." My cheeks warmed, and I hesitated. "Because you like men?"

"Yes, but not in the way you mean." He tipped the ale back, took another swallow. "They don't care where I put my cock, so long as it's in an Altmer. Haven't you heard? We're the superior race."

"I reckon I'd be more likely to believe that if I hadn't seen you piss on that guard's boots that time."

"Yeah, well, honestly... What sort of fuckwitted idiot taps a man on the shoulder when he's innocently relieving himself in an alley? He only had himself to blame." He fell silent, running his thumb around the neck of the bottle. "My parents are members of the Thalmor," he said quietly.

"The what?"

"Never heard of them? You should be glad of that, believe me." he said, all amusement gone. "They're... a sort of cult, I suppose. With political leanings. Like the Telvanni wizards, but not nearly so kind-hearted and humble."

"They sound like a delight. Are they powerful?"

"Gods, no. They're a joke in the Summerset Isles. A bunch of lunatics, really. But the compound where I grew up... You've never seen anything like it. As soon as I was old enough, I ran like I was fleeing Oblivion itself. But they have a way of dragging you back." Another sip of ale and his voice twisted in contempt. "They're good at that."

"Would it be so bad?" I ventured. "It's not like they can keep you prisoner. You'd just have to see her, say your goodbyes, and then leave. You wouldn't have to stay..."

"And there," he said bitterly, "speaks a man who knows fuck-all about the Thalmor."

"They scare you that much?" I was half-joking, but in the corner of my eye I saw him lift his head and stare at me.

"They terrify me," he said. "You don't know them. You don't know what they're like. And still..."

"Your mother?"

"My mother." He took a breath. "So. I came to tell you I'm leaving, and to ask you to let Sam know."

"To–"

He cut me off with an impatient wave of his hand. "I'm just getting out of the city for a bit. Find somewhere to lie low to give me some time to clear my head. Figure out what in Oblivion I'm going to do..."

The idea sprung into my head fully formed.

"We could go to Anvil," I said suddenly. "Meet Armande off the boat when he gets back. I bet Miaran would come too..."

"Anvil? Not sure that's a good idea. My cousin'll be sailing out of Anvil."

"But that's why it's perfect." I swing towards him, grinning. "Don't you see? It's the last place she'd think to look. And if you do decide you want to go–"

His expression changed. There was a flash of realisation in his eyes, and a slow grin of delight spread across his face. "Jack," he said, "is there a girl in Anvil?"

And all my thought processes stuttered to a stop. I stared at him, feeling my cheeks heating up. "No."

"A boy then?"

" _No_. I told you, Armande–"

"Yeah." He tilted his ale towards me. "You're full of shit."

I looked away, my face burning. Prayed he couldn't see how red my face must have turned in the darkness. "There's no girl," I muttered.

Min chuckled. "There's a girl," he said to himself under his breath, then took a swig of ale. "Anvil it is then."

"It was just an idea. We don't have to–"

"Too late for that. It would be nice to see Armande again, and it isn't natural to see a Dunmer as tough as Miaran moping and pining away. Besides, who am I to stand in the way of you and your lady love?"

"It's not like that," I said quietly.

"But there is a girl?"

I hesitated, fiddling with the bottle of ale. "Sort of. Maybe. Not really."

"Sounds promising. What's her name?"

I sighed. There was no way he was ever going to let this go. "Millona Umbranox."

For a long moment his expression didn't change. "That," he said carefully, "is the name of the daughter of the Count of Anvil."

I lifted the ale to my lips, but didn't drink. The cold glass kissed my lips, as I stared up at the vast faces of the twin moons, dominating the sky. "Is it?"

"Well, you're nothing if not ambitious," he said finally. "Anvil it is then."


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. All comments are greatly appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Seventeen**

" _The docks are rotten and in ill-repair, and all manner of smells issue forth from the holds of ships and ramshackled warehouses. Shiftless persons gather here to bask in the sun, gossip, chatter, and plot how to beg or steal gold for wine and ale."_

– _Guide to Anvil,_ by Alessia Ottus

At first sight, Anvil was achingly lovely, coloured in soft shades of gray. I began to rise early again as I had as a boy, and took to walking the docks in the early morning, when the mists wreathed the world with gentle clinging fingers. Everything was quiet, the air fresh and briny, and the world at peace.

We wound up staying in the Flowing Bowl, an inn on the docks. It was packed to the rafters during the evening, but since most of its clientele had their own berths on the various ships docked in the harbour it always had free rooms. It was rough, but friendly enough once we'd bought a couple of rounds and played a few hands of cards. It wasn't long before I was both the most popular man in the place and very probably the safest, since I'd made sure to lose very badly indeed. After all, why rob a man once at knifepoint, when you can rob him many times over from behind your hand of cards, and still laugh about it with him afterwards? Especially when he swears he'll win his money back in the next game?

I found a food-stall where the proprietress loved nothing more than to gossip for hours about the city and its nobility. The count had been a seafaring man before he had married into the Umbranox family, something which carried a great deal of weight in a town like Anvil, but it was Millona Umbranox I wanted to hear about, and by a stroke of luck Millona was the stall holder's favoured topic of conversation as well.

"Divines bless her," she said, setting a bowl of fish stew in front of another customer. "Her mother was a fine woman. The very finest, and damned if her daughter doesn't take after her."

I mopped up my own fish stew with a hunk of bread, hardly proper etiquette, but it was too bloody good not to, thickened with potatoes and cream and spiked with paprika. If I hadn't had the bread I suspect I would have been licking the bowl clean. She glanced at me askance, and I smiled ruefully. "This is the finest stew I've eaten in a while."

"Thank you. Tell your friends, won't you? I'd appreciate the custom."

"Of course." I pushed the bowl away. "What happened to Her Ladyship's mother?"

"Rattles took Countess Pellandra about five years ago now. Took her son too, the young lord and heir. It was a miracle it didn't claim Lady Millona's life as well, but the Divines smiled on her and she managed to pull through. It was close though." She sighed, her eyes distant and misty. "Gods only know what the count would have done if he'd lost her too. They were neither of them the same, not after that. Poor child. To have lost her mother and her brother so close together, and to find herself suddenly with all that responsibility resting on her shoulders."

"It must have been hard."

"Almost broke the count. None of us saw him for nearly six months, and in a city like Anvil..." She made a soft scoffing sound. "Well, it's not like this is _Skingrad_. It was the Lady Millona that pulled us through, saw to the funeral. Stood up there in front of the entire town with her face like marble, because she still wasn't over the illness that claimed her mother. You could see her, wavering on her feet, and I swear she almost fainted. Her maid had to catch her several times."

"She sounds like a remarkable woman."

She sniffed. "As fine as her mother. And she'll be a better countess than her brother, gods rest his soul, would ever have been as a count."

~o~O~o~

They do things differently in Anvil, or so the saying goes.

There's an old aphorism that the Nibenese look forwards and elsewhere, while Colovians look back and inwards. It's an over-simplification, but there's some truth to it.

Anvil never had quite lost its piratical leanings. Prosperous as it might be these days, it had started as a backwater port, a haven for the scumbags of the ocean, from which fleets like the Black Flag or the Red Wave could sally out and harry the coastline and merchant vessels. Those days are long gone, but even though the pirate fleets today are nothing like the size they used to be, in Anvil there was always the suggestion that it could return to those bloody old days in the blink of an eye.

When Fasil Umbranox defeated the Black Flag almost a hundred and fifty years ago, his appointment as count served only a way of getting the town's attention. If he hadn't acted fast to consolidate his claim, Fasil Umbranox's rule over the seat of Anvil would have proven the shortest in history.

To rule a city like Anvil back then was to get your hands bloody, and he'd done that all right: by the time he was finished he'd been steeped right up to his elbows in gore (which is, in my humble opinion, the true origin of the name of that fine establishment, The Count's Arms). But even when he'd finished stamping out the insurrections, he still wasn't done. A count who ruled remotely from the safe haven of his castle wouldn't have lasted a day in Anvil, and he'd understood that. Understood it and passed that message down through the Umbranox line.

Millona would shop in the market, greet people in the street. Prayed three times a week in the Chapel of Dibella, and I don't think I've ever known a ruling noble to be so utterly adored. In all my time in Anvil I've never heard a single native of that city say a single negative thing about her. Not once. Not even the beggars.

Since that evening in Kvatch I'd never been able to quite stop thinking about her, although I grant this may seem unlikely to you, dear reader, who has seen something of the sort of man I am. Feckless. Wild. Already eyeing up dissolution and thinking it a fun sort of way to waste a life.

On the surface, Millona was like many of her kind, Colovian through and through: austere, and devout. Entirely unlike the sort of women I usually spent my days with, who had morals as cheerfully loose as my own.

Some people – cynical people – might say it was Millona's very godliness that drew me to her. The kinder ones might suggest it was a sign that I yearned to better myself. Others might suggest I wanted to defile her. To make a mockery of her love of the gods.

Maybe they're all right, but personally, I suspect it's something different. That I saw through her quiet, restrained facade, recognised something in her that was like me. How sad she was, and how desperately lonely.

And maybe part of it too was that she'd turned me down. If she had agreed to dance with me that night in Kvatch then it might never have been more than that. A dance, perhaps a bit of devilish flirting, my hand resting lightly on her lower back, the ever-present hint that it might slide down a little further than the propriety and the steps of the dance required. And then I would have moved on and forgotten all about her.

Perhaps.

I'll never know.

I never deliberately set out to spy on her, you understand. But the truth is, I'm a thief, and watching people from the shadows comes as second nature to me. Wherever I went, there she seemed to be. In the market, strolling blithely past while I guiltily froze in the act of slitting a purse. In the harbour, where it was her habit to watch the sunset under the watchful eye of a guard and her Argonian lady's maid. She'd lift her head towards the setting sun, and every time there was a moment where her eyes seemed to clear and the mask she wore would fall away, and I'd see the woman she truly was underneath, with the dying embers of the sun kissing her hair.

She was then, and always will be, the loveliest woman I had ever seen. Not beautiful, perhaps, although I would personally strenuously debate that with whoever might be foolish enough to say such a thing in my presence, (and by 'strenuously debate' I mean 'threaten to pummel with my fists' until they took it back and apologised) but I've never held beauty in particularly high regard. Beauty can be a terrible thing.

~o~O~o~

Anvil was a difficult place to be a thief, I mused, as I leaned back against the tree in the market square. In another city I might have been working the crowd on market day. Pockets cannot be trusted to pick themselves. I had work to do, but it was a gloriously warm day, and my ale so deliciously thirst-quenching and the molten sunlight of the late afternoon spilled through the leaves above me like drops of melting gold. Somehow persuading myself to move was quite beyond my powers.

A group of children ran around in high spirits, playing tag and dodging passers-by, and getting in the way of the Count's Arms Players who were trying to set up their temporary stage for the evening's entertainment. Not all of the children were wearing shoes, but they weren't wary or cautious or on the thieve. They were just _children,_ heedless of anything but the need to have as much fun as possible before the game was broken up and they were called home to eat.

I'd had one or two moments like that myself – chasing Sir Ham back in Bravil before he'd been led away to the butcher's block, his delicious little legs trotting trustingly along after Tertius (and gods, how Elise had wept), but they never lasted for long.

One of the children hurdled over my legs, and barrelled into Norbert Lelles, who was my age, but was one of those men who'd had been getting on for middle-age since he turned fifteen. He was portly, sweet natured and not terribly bright, and thanks to a misplaced apostrophe on the sign on his shop, I'd spent my first three weeks in Anvil calling him Mr Lelle. Finally he'd rather sweetly and nervously cleared his throat, apologised several times and told me he'd been meaning to get the sign fixed for ages and his name was actually Lelles.

The boy's mother, who'd been gossiping with some friends, scurried over to apologise profusely to both of us (me in particular), while we insisted that, no, we were both fine, honestly, and boys will be boys. And when she hauled her boy off by the ear Norbert gazed after her for a long moment before giving me a sorrowful little smile and continuing on his way.

This world is filled with stories, laid out for any man to see if he'd only take the time to stop and read them.

But a man also has to eat, and I needed to make some money fast before Armande returned, found out just how much money I'd spunked on card games, and decided that stringing me up by my balls might be the best plan after all. Living on the docks has its advantages: along with the bracing sea air, the freshest fish available and close proximity to brothels (and here I really ought to mention that I didn't take advantage of all the amenities available), they're the best place to glean information about ships and their cargoes. A drunken sailor can usually be relied on to get drunker.

I'd been hearing talk of a ship that had recently sailed into port. In the Bowl, there'd been mutterings about some Dwemer artifacts smuggled in from Morrowind without an Imperial charter by a middleman who planned to sell them on to a wealthy man in the Imperial City. And the middleman in question had emerged from the Count's Arms a little worse for wear and was winding his way through the market, past the makeshift stage.

I'd already cased his house, found an especially fascinating chest guarded with an unpickable lock. And an unpickable lock meant only one thing: I needed the key. Easy enough to meet him coming the other way, to let him bump into me while he was distracted by the fair maiden from the Players adjusting one of her breasts that had gone askew.

"My apologies, sir," he mumbled, and continued on his way, while I cupped his key in the hollow of my palm and grinned.

And then I swung around and came face to face with Millona, arm in arm with her lady's maid. I froze guiltily, my gaze flitting off to where the inevitable guard lingered, keeping a watchful eye out for her. And eyeing me up with suspicion.

"My Lady!" I spoke without thinking, wondering whether she'd seen me pickpocketing the merchant's pocket.

"Good afternoon." Her smile was friendly enough but formal. She hadn't recognised me. And the castle of dreams I'd built on thistledown and oyster spit came crashing down.

 _Idiot_ , I thought.

There was no reason why she should know me. We'd met over a year ago and only once. But I'd been so certain that I'd seen something in her, and that she had seen something in me.

Then a flash of sudden recognition flared in her eyes. "Of course," she said. "It's Corvus, isn't it?"

And I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. I sketched a bow. "Corvus Alviarus. At your service, My Lady. It's a pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise. Are you planning on returning to Morrowind?"

"Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. A friend of mine is expected in from Hammerfell in the next few days, and I thought I'd take your advice."

She tilted her head. "What advice would that be?"

"To see a little more of Colovia. Particularly Anvil."

And if there was ever a secret passage to the Lady Millona's heart, it was Anvil. Her eyes brightened. "And what do you think of it so far?"

"Honestly?" I glanced around. "It's a beautiful city, but its heart is its people. I don't think I've ever been anywhere where the folk are so friendly and welcoming."

 _Makes it hard to rob them. Bit awkward for a thief._

"Not in Morrowind, that's for certain," the Argonian said.

"Ha." I grinned. "No, that's true. Half the time I suspect most of the people in Morrowind wanted to take a fist to my face. And they were the ones I called my friends."

Millona laughed, and even Qileel gave a flash of a genuine smile, but only briefly. She had sharp eyes, that Argonian, and even sharper teeth.

~o~O~o~

Now Millona knew I was in Anvil and that I was staying dockside it was impossible to avoid her. We'd meet in the harbour and watch the sunset or take a stroll in the market, talking of Anvil, or of Morrowind, or of my sightseeing in the Imperial City. Nothing of any import, but every so often there would be a moment where all the sorrow, all the heartache and loneliness had gone from her eyes, and she would glance up at my face and smile, and her smile would warm my face like the sun. And still I told myself it was an entertaining diversion, nothing more than that. It never even occurred to me that I might be falling in love.

Besides I had other problems.

Something had shifted in Min since we'd left the Imperial City weeks ago. He'd hardened, gained a bitter edge, like an envenomed dagger. He was drinking more too, as if he wanted to forget – debauch the whole mess out of himself if he could.

On my return to The Flowing Bowl one night, Maenlorn beckoned me over. "Do something about your friend, will you?" he asked, his eyes pleading.

I glanced over at where Min sat in the darkest corner, and winced. From his baleful glare and red-rimmed eyes he'd been there a while. His calfskin boot was propped up on the table, his chair tilted back against the wall.

 _Shit._

The Bosmer lowered his voice. "Thing is there's a new ship in from Hammerfell and the crew aren't too fond of Altmers as it is and he's being... Well, he's being particularly difficult tonight. Would you...?"

"I'll speak to him."

Relief flooded his face. "Thank the gods." And when I tried to pay he waved my money away. "This round's on the house.

"Jack!" Min was well past drunk, a dangerous edge in his eyes. He bared his teeth as I approached, took a swig of ale. "If that Bosmer _cunt_ asks me to guess which one he is one more time I'll cut his fucking throat." His voice was loud enough that the whole inn could hear. I winced and glanced over my shoulder, saw Maenlorn go pale and swallow.

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I?" He cocked his head, considered it. "Damn it, you're right. After all, who'd serve the fucking drinks?"

I contemplated my full tankard of ale, barely even sipped, and sighed. It was like turning my back on a beautiful and willing maiden begging me to make love to her. _Millona, for instance._ "What do you say we go for a walk, eh? It's a beautiful night, and–"

"I'd say 'fuck that'. I'd rather stay here and drink."

"Min..." In the corner, a group of sailors were eyeing him darkly. I put my hand on his arm. "I really think–"

"Get your fucking hands off me."

I stepped away, jaw clenching.

Min eyed his empty tankard. "Fine. It reeks of fish in here anyway." He dropped his chair back down, shooting a mocking smirk at the table of glowering seamen, any one of whom looked like they could and would have murdered us without a second thought. And never mind them: that smirk made me itch to punch Min's fucking lights out.

"Fare thee well, gentlemen," he said, with a mocking bow. Dangerous eyes and Maenlorn's nervous smile rested on our backs as we stepped out into the warm night air. The soft glow of the lanterns illuminated the ships in the harbour, and I stared up at the lighthouse, thinking about Millona.

Min had gone quiet, burying his hands in his pockets. As we walked, he lifted his face to meet the warm breeze. He looked pale and drawn, but his expression had softened, and I hoped his prickly mood from inside the tavern had passed.

"On nights like this," he murmured, his eyes closed, "I can almost smell home."

Home. I'd never heard him talk about the Summerset Isles as home. Never realised he thought of anywhere other than the Imperial City that way.

"Do you miss it?"

His eyes opened. "That's a stupid fucking question."

Okay. Clearly the prickliness hadn't passed.

I spread my arms. "I apologise for breathing. I'll let you be." I was too fucking tired of this, and my heart felt torn, between bed and Millona and the barely sipped ale I'd left behind in the Bowl. I walked on ahead, putting him to my back, but I hadn't gone three paces before he spoke.

"Have you fucked her yet?"

I stopped dead. I turned slowly, found his eyes glittering with malice. " _What_?"

"Just curious. What was she like? Or did she just let you squeeze her tits?"

"You–" I broke off, raising my hand. "Don't talk about Millona that way. Not ever."

"Ah." He nodded sagely. "That'll be a no then."

I took a few deep breaths. Counted to three until I had my voice under control. "Why are you being such a cunt lately? What's got into you?"

"You tell me, Jack. Oh... I do beg your pardon. _Corvus_."

"I don't give a fuck what you call me. Is it the Summerset Isles? Is that why you're being such a piece of shit to everyone? Do you feel guilty because you wish you'd gone to see your mother–"

"Don't you dare." He blanched livid, stabbed a finger at me. "Don't you fucking dare talk about my mother."

"Fine. Whatever." I threw up my hands. "I'm done with this. Feel free to get murdered by pirates. I'm going to my bed."

"And I bet you wish you were going to someone else's," he called after me. "Maybe I'll pay your countess a visit, Corvus. See if I can't charm those legs apart."

"Feel free to try," I snapped back over my shoulder. "I don't think I'll worry about it too much. She's human after all, and when it comes to women you only ever fuck other Altmers."

His eyes flared wide, his expression flooding with shock and confusion. And something else, I think, something very much like fear. "What did you say?" Then his face flushed with rage. " _What did you say_?"

"You fucking heard."

He came at me. He was taller than I was, with more reach, but he never had been much of a fighter. I was lucky, I think, that he was so drunk, and didn't think to use magic. He swung at me, a clumsy roundhouse punch that I dodged with ease. I shoved him away, knocking him to the ground. He stared up at me, the rage on his face breaking apart, shifting to something that was pure pain and bewilderment.

I turned my back on him. Walked away.

~o~O~o~

Because I couldn't bear the thought of going back to the Flowing Bowl and facing Min, I booked myself a room in the Count's Arms, paying extra for fresh sheets. While they made up my room, I sat in the parlour, quietly fuming and wondering if I shouldn't have a quiet glass of brandy before I took myself off up to bed. In the end I had three, and when I finally dragged my carcass upstairs Min was in the room waiting for me.

"Godsdamnit."

He held up his hands. "I didn't come to fight."

"Good, because I'm not in the fucking mood to humour you any more. And you know I'd batter you if I put my mind to it."

"I know." All the fight, all the spite and fury and bile had been stripped away from him. He looked utterly defeated, his posture slumped and his eyes swollen. "I came to tell you I'm sorry."

"Couldn't this have waited until the morning?"

He shook his head. "If I waited till the morning I wouldn't have done it. And you'd have put it behind you because that's what you always do, and it would have been forgotten. And I don't want it to be forgotten."

"I think I do. Exactly how drunk are you?"

"Not nearly drunk enough. I broke into Quality Merchandise and bought you some brandy." He proffered the bottle as proof. "Consider it an apology for my being such a cunt."

"How exactly do you break into somewhere and buy brandy?"

"It's not like it's complicated, Jack. You take what you want and leave the money on the counter."

"Right."

"I know you like Norbert Lelle. I know you wouldn't have wanted me to steal from him." He paused, cast a pleading look at me. "It isn't true. What you said about me only fucking Altmer women. It isn't true."

"It's Lelles. And I shouldn't have said that." Although he, I thought, shouldn't have said all those things about Millona. I pushed the bitterness away. _Really not the time_. "Not like I've tallied up all the people you've slept with. I'm sure it isn't true."

"And maybe you were right. About the other thing." He fiddled with the buckle of his boot. "Maybe I should go home. And maybe I do feel bad that I haven't, that my mother's... But I've stayed away for so long. It's almost like... like I don't know how."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

He blinked, stared at me. "You don't mean that."

I hadn't, in fact. It was just one of those things you said, when you were tired, and weary and wanted to turf the drunken idiot out of your room as fast as possible, but it occurred to me that perhaps I _had_ meant it. That perhaps I wouldn't mind seeing what the world was like beyond the borders of Cyrodiil. The Summerset Isles, the soaring glass towers of Alinor, fragile and iridescent as dragonfly wings. And everywhere else: Hammerfell, High Rock, Valenwood.

And Morrowind naturally.

Wasn't like there was anything for me in Anvil, as much as I was coming to love the city and its people, and as much as I liked spending time with Millona. It wasn't like that could ever go anywhere. A woman like her could hardly marry a man like me. "Yeah, fuck it, why not?"

"Well, don't sound too enthusiastic."

"Nah, I mean it. Be nice to have an excuse to travel, see a bit more of the world. Fair warning though, I get seasick. I'd probably end up vomiting all over you. But yeah, if you think it'd help to have someone there, I'd go with you, Min. Happily."

He thought about this for a long time. So long I was starting to wonder if he'd forgotten what it was he was thinking about, if his mind had gone wandering off down a blind alley. Finally he shook his head.

"It's a kind offer, Jack, but I think if I do go, it's something I'd need to do on my own."

"If you're certain."

"I'm certain." His hand closed over mine. He stood, and drew me into a shaky hug. The smell of his sweat enveloped me, like sweet wine gone sour. His hand rested on my back, gently rubbing between my shoulder blades. It was a strange hug, not quite an attempt at seduction but not entirely platonic either. He drew back, placed a kiss on my cheek, then another, more lingering kiss at the corner of my mouth.

I set my hand against his slender chest and gently pushed him away. "Go home, Min."

His eyes met mine with a flash of something – sorrow, regret – then he nodded. "Yeah. Probably for the best."

"Do me one favour, though. Apologise to Maenlorn as well."

He shot me a startled look. "Why? What'd I do?"

"Well, for one thing you called him a Bosmer cunt and then you threatened to slit his throat."

"Oh." He grimaced. "Whoops."

~o~O~o~

Armande's return came like a change in the wind. He' seemed to have grown taller, a little stockier, in the months he'd been away. Dressed in the garb of a sailor, he looked like a different man, someone who had been born to the role and it took me a few moments to recognise him. He was grinning, laughing a filthy laugh at something one of the other sailors said, and opening his mouth to reply with something no doubt equally filthy, when he spotted us. His eyes flared wide in a startled expression as Miaran sprinted forwards to hug him, but he recovered quickly, caught her up and spun her around. One of the other sailors snorted in laughter, and he spat a curse over his shoulder at them while he set her down, his arm still slung around her shoulder.

The Flowing Bowl was rammed. We elbowed our way through the crowd to buy drinks, and retreated outside, escaping from the noise and chaos.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you all, but what in Oblivion are you three bastards doing here?" Armande asked.

Miaran punched his shoulder lightly. "To meet you off the boat, you _n'wah_."

"Well, I'm flattered..."

"That, and certain circumstances meant it wise to vacate the Imperial City," Min said. He flashed his teeth at me. "Also, _Corvus_ has a sweetheart."

I kicked him. "I do not. Shut up."

"About fucking time." Armande grinned at me. His hand was tightly knit with Miaran's. Her shoulder pressed against his, her head resting on his shoulder. And I knew it wouldn't be long before they made themselves scarce to reacquaint themselves with each other.

"It's not like that." Although gods, how I wished it was.

"What's her name?"

"Millona, but I told you, it's not like that."

"Only because he doesn't have the guts to tell her how he feels," Min said.

"And if he did, I doubt his guts would be where they belong for very long." Miaran shook her head. "He's best off staying well away from that one."

Min rolled his eyes. "Gods, you Dunmers. No romance in your souls."

"We've plenty of romance, thank you. Just more common sense than the average Altmer. Her father would have him strung up by his balls."

"Got a temper has he?" Armande asked.

The grin spread across Min's face. He waited until Armande had brought his tankard to his mouth, and then he said innocently, "As it happens, he's the Count of Anvil."

Armande spluttered, sending out a spray of ale. Coughing, he pressed his hand to the back of his mouth, his eyes meeting mine. "You're shitting me. Jack, tell me he's joking?"

"He's not joking," I said, and Armande started to laugh.

"Only you," he said. "Only you, you stupid fucker."

~o~O~o~

It was the tail end of the summer, the weather starting to shift towards autumn with the first leaves beginning to fall. In the north, there would be snow drifts deep enough a man could get lost in them, but on the southern edge of Cyrodiil summer lingered.

It was too lovely an evening to spend in the inn surrounded by sweat and salt and rough company, so we moved out along the shore to find a spot where we could build a bonfire and see out the sunset. Armande and Miaran made themselves scarce for a scant hour, and came creeping back, flushed and dishevelled and smug in the face of our good-natured mockery. Min's changeable mood had finally lifted, and my heart was lighter than it had been in a while.

I was already a little bit drunk when I levered myself up to fetch more drinks from the Bowl, and trudged back towards the harbour with the last warmth of the setting sun on my back, The heat of the day was giving way to the cooler breeze of the early evening and the first bite of the coming winter, as I emerged from the Bowl with my arms filled with bottles of ale and beer.

And of course she was there: Millona, watching the sunset with Qileel, and the watchful guard at the gate. She called out a greeting to me, laughing at how I cradled the bottles in my arms, precious as babies.

"Are you thirsty, Corvus?"

"Parched, My Lady." And I was already a little drunk, or I wouldn't have smiled at her the way I did, the wicked grin I kept tucked away for scenarios other than this and women other than her. It was the sort of smile I turned on a woman I fully intended to seduce.

Her eyes gleamed in response, very nearly as wicked as my own, and Qileel shot me a sharply disapproving look.

"They aren't all for me, I assure you," I said, and gestured along the harbour to where the fire burned in the distance. "That friend I told you about. We're celebrating his return."

"Ah. Well, I won't intrude."

I tilted my head. "Intrude if you wish, My Lady. You'd be very welcome."

Mischief sparked in her eyes. She glanced at Qileel's disapproving expression, and then back at me. I grinned wider, held out my hand. And I swear blind I never expected her to take it, but she did, and laughed at how startled I looked. And her own eyes were bright, and in that moment all her loneliness had fled, and she was the loveliest thing I'd ever seen.

~o~O~o~

Only when it came to it and she and Qileel had joined us by the fire, I hadn't a clue what to say to her. The guard had followed us, and hovered nearby, looking all too willing to butcher the lot of us if it looked like we were even contemplating sneezing in her direction, which put a bit of a dampener on our celebrations.

 _Say something_ , I thought, watching Millona out of the corner of my eye. But my mouth had gone dry, my mind blank, and I was inwardly kicking myself for not having kept my fuckwitted mouth shut.

It was the guard who spotted the mudcrab first. I heard the sound of his blade being drawn, and I flinched in terror, certain that he might have decided to butcher me on the spot. His expression was grim, but it was fixed not on me, but on the water. I followed his gaze, saw the crab, and burst out laughing.

"Godsblood, man, it's just a mudcrab."

He glared at me, and I grinned back, kicked off my boots, rolled up my trousers and waded into the water. The crab lurched in a lumbering circle, readying itself to attack, while the others whooped from the shore. I gripped the hilt of my dagger, and set my knee on the hard carapace of its shell, using my weight to pin it down. With one sharp jab of my dagger I pierced its brain and killed it instantly.

"Hircine himself would be proud," Min called.

But killing it was the easy bit, since the crab was heavier than it looked, and the rocks beneath my feet uneven.

"Godsdamn, help me with this, would you?"

"You slew it, oh mighty hunter. You can drag it to the shore."

"I'll help." And before anyone could do anything, Millona was kicking off her own shoes, and gathering up her skirts. She gave a sharp intake of breath as she waded into the wader. "It's freezing."

I grinned. "It's lovely once you're in."

She joined me beside the crab, and let her skirts fall into the water as we rolled the crab to shore. By the time we reached shore and the guard reached out his hand to pull her to safety, both of us were laughing.

We roasted the mudcrab in the fire. Piled hot rocks atop of it, and waited impatiently while the mouthwatering smell of cooking crab seeped out between the stones. The sun set, accompanied by the music of the snap of the wind in distant sails, and a distant sea shanty from the harbour. And despite the beauty of the sky, streaked with pink and gold, it was impossible to keep my gaze from flitting to Millona's face, taking in every detail and trying not to let her catch me watching her. We levered the crab out of the pit with the end of a shovel, and snatched back impatient fingers with muttered curses, the shell as yet too hot to handle. And then there was silence while we ripped the crab apart, hot juices dribbling down our arms while we cracked the legs at the joints and sucked out the tiny scraps of meat.

Even Qileel ate with us, but the guard hung back, and stared at me in offended shock when I offered him an ale.

I shifted closer to Millona, leaned into her as closely as propriety would allow. "Is it always like that?"

"Like what?"

I jerked my head towards the guard. "Them watching you."

"Oh." She turned her head, studied the guard for a moment. "I suppose I've stopped noticing it."

"I think it'd drive me out of my mind," I said. "I'd end up sneaking off."

She laughed suddenly. "You know, I used to do exactly that. When my brother was still alive." Her smile faded, but the warmth of fond memories lingered in her eyes. "We used to sneak out of the castle. Dodge the guards and run down to the beach. They'd try to follow us, but, well... Steel plate armour slows a man down. We were too fast, and we knew the area far too well. And neither one of us cared a whit about the trouble we'd get into if we were caught. You know what children are like. I expect you were exactly the same."

Well, she was right there. Although I'd wager everything I owned that she wouldn't have been risking a kicking if she got caught. "I've had my moments."

She glanced at me. "Have you any brothers or sisters?"

"Not full blooded ones. A couple of half-brothers and sisters. None that I'm particularly close to. And Armande, of course. I've known him since we were boys."

"Did you meet in Morrowind?"

 _Shit. Careful, Jack._ "He's been around," I said. "In every sense of the phrase."

Armande lifted his boot and kicked my leg without looking around. Millona laughed. Qileel's expression of disapproval was so intense by now that I thought her eyes might actually have permanently crossed.

"What was he like, your brother?" I asked.

She considered this for a moment, bending the joint of the crab leg back and forth. "He was brave. And fierce. I would have said he was never afraid of anything. It's hard to say which of us was the most wicked, which of us was leading the other astray."

"I don't believe you could be wicked for a moment. The amount of time you spend going to chapel."

She glanced up at that, smiling. "Have you been watching me, Corvus?"

A flush spread across my cheeks. "I've seen you around," I said casually. "From time to time." And then, because it seemed far safer to change the subject, "You sound like you miss him a lot."

Her expression turned grave. "I do," she said. "Every day. It's not the same without him. I hope he's happy, wherever he is, but I still wish he was here. He would have loved this, and it's not been the same without him. My life is sadder, it's quieter, and whenever I come to watch the sunset, well..." She flicked her hand towards the guard.

"You could still do it, you know."

"Do what?"

"Sneak out. Enjoy the sunset without being spied on."

"Well. How would I do it, then?" She propped her chin on her hand, her eyes on mine. "How would I sneak out?"

"Simple," I said, grinning. "You'd open a window and shimmy down the wall." And then, when she burst out laughing, "Honestly. It's easy. I could help you."

Her shining eyes turned on me, and how beautiful she was when she was laughing and happy, her eyes filled with joy. Qileel watched us, suspicious, but we were talking too softly for her to catch the conversation.

"All right then," Millona said. "Sneak me out tomorrow night. I dare you."

"Hmm." I brought my ale to my lips. "Well, there's the answer to your question, My Lady."

"What question is that?"

"Which of you was the most wicked, you or your brother. I'd say it's fairly clear that it's you. And gods help the people of Anvil when you become countess. They don't know what they're in for."

"I knew you wouldn't do it," she said, shaking her head in mock-disappointment.

"Far from it, My lady. I've never turned down a dare in my life, and I'm damned if I'm going to start now. Tomorrow night, you said? I'll be there.

"And I'll be waiting."

~o~O~o~

I hadn't really been expecting her to be waiting for me. But as I slipped through the garden of Castle Anvil, skirting past the paths strung with coloured lanterns, with the damp scent of flowers, lavender and honeysuckle rising around me, I stepped past a box hedge and saw her. She sat on a love seat, with her legs tucked beneath her and a book open on her lap. I paused for a moment to drink her in, my heart and throat aching. Even now, when I picture Millona in my mind's eye, this is always the sharpest, clearest image: Millona, reading while she waits for me.

Make of that what you will.

I made a soft noise, and she lifted her head, a slow smile spreading across her face. "I didn't think you'd come."

"Told you I never turned down a dare. I didn't think you'd actually be waiting." I gave a cautious glance around, then threw the set of hooded robes I'd brought on the love seat beside her.

She laughed.

~o~O~o~

For a while it was as if we were both children again. We ran to the dunes, past the headland on which the lighthouse stood. The tide was out and the sand of the dunes cascaded down before us as we slipped down the slope, and ran, whooping, to where the wet sand lay as flat as a mirror, reflecting the soft glow of the moons.

On the dunes, Millona tipped her hood back, and we lay back, the wet Marram grass prickling at our skin. She spoke for a long while about her brother, about how deeply she missed him, and when she trailed off, I told her the story of Jode and Jone, and she listened, her head pillowed in the sand, watching a long-legged spider explore the back of her hand.

When the story was finished, we sat in silence for a long time. I was wondering whether I should take her back or if instead I should risk trying to kiss her, when she turned her head to look at me. "My father wants to meet you."

"Oh." _Shit_.

Millona laughed. "Don't look so terrified, Corvus. He knows I've been spending time with you and that you're a friend of Marus's. He's curious about you, that's all."

I would have laid everything I owned on it being a damn sight more than curiosity, but I let that slide. "Are you sure it's a good idea?"

"Why?" She tilted her head. Her expression was serious, but her eyes were filled with laughter. "It's not as if your intentions are anything but honourable, is it?"

"Of course not," I said, not quite knowing whether I meant I was honourable, or anything but. "I'm nothing but a faithful servant at your service, My Lady."

"Then come to dinner on Loredas and be at my service there. It'll be a very casual affair and I'm sure nothing you were used to in Morrowind, but we will endeavour to do our best to keep you entertained."

"I'm sure you'll manage that, My Lady. Since all I need to keep me entertained is your company." The words came a little too swiftly, a little too smoothly. They felt like lies. I pushed myself to my feet, and reached down to help her up. "I will. On one condition."

"What's that?"

"You'll dance with me."

"Well." She took hold of my hand. "If those are your terms..."

"They are."

"Then I suppose I shall have to abide by them." Her hand was in mine, our fingers interlinked. "It seems a small price to pay."

"Hmm, really?" I pulled her up, and had to resist the urge to tug her into my arms. "In that case, perhaps I should have asked for more."

Too late now.

~o~O~o~

I pressed the point of the comb into my hair, drew it forwards, squinting at my reflection in the mirror. It looked unconvinced. Almost as unconvinced as Armande, who sat on my bed, reading _The 36 Lessons of Vivec,_ and frowning _._

"What do you reckon?" I asked. "Left parting or right parting."

"I don't give a fuck." He licked his finger and turned another page. "Dibella's tits, this is... How literally are we supposed to take this bollocks?"

"Completely literally, I think." I studied my reflection in the mirror. "What about a middle parting?"

He lifted his head, and studied me, his eyes lost in shadow. "You sure this is a good idea?"

"Nope."

"But you're going to do it anyway?"

"Gods yes." I glanced at him. "I promised her I'd go."

"Jack..." He hesitated, rubbing his jaw. "Just be careful, okay. I've heard some things about the Count."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, for one, that he's a ruthless bastard. The sort of bastard that wouldn't laugh off a no-name criminal seducing his only daughter."

"Godsdamn, I have no intention of seducing anyone."

He raised his eyebrows, and even though his eyes were lost in shadow, I didn't need to see them to know they were filled with _You're full of shit._

The left parting looked ridiculous. I turned towards him, scruffing up my hair. "I mean it. Absolutely no seducing whatsoever. I'm going to be on my best behaviour. The perfect gentleman."

"If you say so."

"I do say so." I brandished the brush at him. "I am capable of going more than an hour without getting my end away, you know. So stop looking at me like I'm some kind of rake who can't help trying to fuck any woman he sees."

"Jack–"

"I'm bloody not, Armande."

"Didn't say you were. But Min..."

"Fuck Min. He doesn't know what he's talking about." I sank down on the bed beside him. "You would have understood if you'd seen more of her. She's... there's something about her. I don't know what it is."

"She's massively wealthy? Lives in a castle?"

"Shut it, you. It's nothing to do with any of that. She just... She looks so sad. And when I'm with her... I don't know. She doesn't look sad any more."

He rolled his eyes upwards. "You bloody moony bastard. I think I might actually throw up."

"Fuck off." I whacked him with the hairbrush and he yelped. "Now be some bloody use, and tell me: left or right parting."

"Neither. Slick it back and use the bear grease." He batted his eyelashes. "It brings out the sparkle in your eyes."

"Fuck off." I snatched the pot from the side table, cracked the lid, and took a cautious sniff. "Are you sure? I think it's gone rancid."

"Good, it'll cover up the way you smell." He flinched, throwing up his hands and laughing as I threatened to whack him with the hairbrush again. As I pushed myself up and moved back to the mirror again, he hesitated, eyes on my back "You know we'll be heading back to the Imperial City in a day or too, right?"

"Right." I tried slicking my hair back with the grease, gave my fingers a cautious sniff while my stomach squeezed.

"You're coming too, right?"

"Well, yeah... I mean, I will eventually. I will. It's just... I've got some things to do here first."

"Uh huh. Well, it's been nice knowing you, Jack. I'll miss you when the Count of Anvil has you disembowelled for defiling his lovely daughter."

"You really ought to have more faith in me."

"I do. That's the problem." He opened the book again, let it fall open to a random page. Whatever he read there made him roll his eyes. "Sure you don't want me to stay for a day or two longer? Just in case?"

"In case of what? Anyway, I've not done nothing wrong. On my honour, I was a perfect gentleman. We didn't do aught but talk."

"'Aught'. You're sounding more Colovian every minute. Even when you ain't trying to." He turned a page, spoke again, his voice casual. "Tell me one thing, though, Jack... Would the count agree you've done nothing wrong?"

I thought about Millona and I running on the wet sand, the moment we'd tumbled onto the dunes, her hand in mine. Sand for a bed, Marram grass for sheets, and the stars our ceiling. And if the count knew, he'd fucking butcher me. I didn't answer.

"And another thing," Armande continued, "when was the last time you did an actual job?"

"I haven't had time."

"Come off it, Jack. You've always got time to pick a pocket. It's like breathing to you. Or it used to be." His eyes had sharpened: he knew very well why I hadn't.

If you're a good enough thief, you develop an instinct for when you're being observed. I tend to feel it as a warning prickle on the back of my neck. The ones who don't have it don't last very long. And I'd been feeling it more and more: one too many strange faces in the Flowing Bowl, and their eyes flitting over to my table once too often.

Could have been all those mysterious passing strangers just had a thing for me, and I wouldn't have blamed them, but with more than one I'd tested the waters with a cautious friendly smile, and a tilt of my tankard. It was a come-talk-to-me gesture Min used when he wasn't too certain about the tide of feeling in the room, or how the object of his affections might respond.

Not one of those curious, nosy little fishies had taken the bait.

Someone was having me watched, and I was pretty sure it was him, the bastard Count of Anvil. No one else had a reason to. Armande was right about the stories he'd heard, and I'd heard some of my own, enough to know I was wading in very dangerous water indeed.

~o~O~o~

Millona had called the dinner informal, but it turned out to be a five course banquet, the fish course leading on inexorably from the soup, and with multiple palate cleaners and fancies served in between the courses. I had been sat opposite Ebben Benirus, the older Benirus heir, who was of an age with Millona. I suspect he might have been Lucar Umbranox's first choice for a son-in-law if he hadn't looked like such a complete wreck of a man. He slumped at the table, his eyes sunken and shadowed, and drank like the wine was water and he'd been wandering in the Alik'r desert for a decade.

The formal stilted atmosphere made me long for the flat expanse of the beach and the stars above, for the hollow echo of the wind whistling through the dune. I met Millona's gaze across the table, and we shared a smile, but it was hard not to notice how far apart we'd been seated. Far enough that it couldn't have been anything but deliberate. The back of my neck itched, and I raised my glass of wine to my mouth, cast my gaze around. The count was watching me, a cold smile on his lips, and I swallowed down the wine and stared down at my empty plate, thinking I was a dead man.

~o~O~o~

A portrait of Millona's mother hung on the wall in the parlour we retired to after the dinner had finally come to its interminable end. Some might have said Pellandra had been prettier than her daughter, but to me the woman in the portrait lacked Millona's sharp intelligence. In the portrait the former Countess of Anvil sat with one hand laid in her lap, the other on the head of a shaggy gray hunting dog, and her eyes turned outwards, towards the sea.

That prickle on the back of my neck again. I knew without turning that it was Lucar Umbranox. His eyes, the same shade of hazel as Millona's but much sharper, fixed on me. He regarded me as if he saw right through me, and what he saw he didn't like.

"So you're the young man I've been hearing so much about." He sipped his brandy. "You're from Morrowind, I hear."

"Indeed, Your Grace. Although I was born in County Anvil originally."

"Were you _really_." It wasn't a question. His gaze flicked over my robes. I had made the mistake of wearing the finest richest clothes in my possession. An idiot thing to do: I should have worn something plainer. I felt like a peacock surrounded by pigeons. "You don't dress much like a Colovian."

"A habit formed by half a lifetime spent in Morrowind, Your Grace."

"Hmm. And you met my daughter... when exactly? I'm afraid I can't really recall...

"In Kvatch. Marus Goldwine introduced us."

"I must be certain to thank young Marus for that. And do you have business in Anvil, Master Alviarus?"

"It's said that a true Imperial can find business wherever he looks, Your Grace. I manage."

At that he gave me a thin humourless smile. "Still, it's a quiet city, Anvil. A man like you, I suspect you might find the Imperial City more conducive to your tastes."

 _You fucking bastard._ "Oh, I don't know. I'm finding I'm very fond of Anvil." My smile widened, enough to show teeth. "Perhaps I'll buy a house and make it my home. Enjoy the your fine hospitality for a while longer. For as long as I possibly can."

His smile stiffened. There was no other change in his expression.

Perhaps I was being unfair. True, I strongly suspected he'd been having me spied on and his hints that I ought to leave Anvil couldn't have been clearer, but if I'd been in his position I would have found me wanting too, and I would have been a damn sight less controlled than he had been. In his position, I would probably have had my men bundle a sack over my head, give me a good kicking and drag me out to the middle of the Colovian Highlands with an order never to show my face in Anvil again.

But then I knew exactly what sort of man I was.

Millona was by the fire, attempting to engage Ebben Benirus in conversation. I might have felt a flash of jealousy if I hadn't spent all of dinner trying to do the same thing, and found it a little like trying to talk to a particularly uncommunicative rock.

She looked up and saw me, a flash of relief in her eyes. "Corvus," she said, and although she didn't say them, the words 'Thank the gods, rescue me please,' were evident in her expression and her posture. I glanced at Ebben, but he was only staring at the fire, irises ticking back and forth as he followed the flames. "Ebben's family own the manor at the end of town. They've lived in Anvil since time immemorial. Certainly longer than the Umbranoxes. Isn't that right, Ebben?"

He lifted his haunted eyes to mine. "So I'm told. You're from Morrowind."

"That's right. But I was—"

"Every time I see a ship bound for Morrowind I think I should just climb aboard it. One of these days I think I'll actually do it." His intonation was slow and unnaturally flat, his words slurred. And Milona's smile was a little too brittle.

"Oh. You want to visit Morrowind?"

"Not particularly." He lifted his glass to his lips. "I just can't wait to get the fuck away from Anvil."

"Oh. Um..."

The glass rose again. Hypnotic. "This city. Its whispering stones. Gods, I hate it here. I can't wait to get away. I can't fucking wait." He broke off, gaze flitting between me and Millona and our carefully composed expressions. He muttered something and tore himself away, lurched towards the serving girl in search of another drink. We stood frozen, until my gaze met Millona's and I let out a sharp breath of air, puffing out my cheeks.

"Well, he's a character, isn't he?"

Millona's lips twitched. "I know. Poor Ebben."

"Is he all right? He seems a bit..." _Touched by Sheogorath?_ "...Tired."

"He's lovely really. Or he used to be. He was very close friends with my brother."

"And he's not been the same since?"

She frowned. "No, I don't think that's it. He's always been a bit odd, even since we were children, but it's been getting worse lately. He always used to talk about the stone, how it would whisper to him in the middle of the night."

"Gods, that's..."

"Creepy?" She nodded. "The talk is that Benirus Manor is haunted. There've been stories about that house all my life. Personally I've never liked being there much."

I shivered. I hated the thought of ghosts almost as much as I hated zombies.

"How did you get on with my father?" she asked.

"I think he likes me," I lied, and took the risk of glancing at the count, who was staring at me with an expression that could only be described as a glower. "Yes, he's definitely warming to me. You can see it in his eyes. It's the grimace that gives it away."

She leaned in closer. "Ah, now that's better."

"What's better?"

"I was starting to wonder whether you'd ever let that mask drop. You haven't seemed your usual self all evening."

"Oh, haven't I? And what would exactly my usual self be like?" I shifted a fraction closer to her, and although I was careful to keep a sharply delineated space between us it seemed to crackle with warmth. No doubt that was just the heat of the fire, but it felt like her. And I no longer cared that the count was watching us, because my eyes were on Millona and her eyes were on me, and it was all worth it. Even if he did decide to have me dragged out to the highlands and beaten to within an inch of my life, it would be worth it. Probably.

"The way you were on the beach," she said softly. "When you stole me away like a common thief."

My heart clutched. I stared at her, lost for a moment before I found my footing again and could trust myself to speak without stammering. "I can't be that much of a thief. I brought you back."

Ebben Benirus, who had found himself a drink and an empty spot on the whitewashed wall to stare fixedly at, lifted his head with a start as the minstrels began to play.

Definitely touched by Sheogorath, the poor man, and I wasn't surprised when they found his body dead two years ago, barricaded into his attic room in the Inn of Ill Omen on the road to Bravil. He'd hung himself from the rafters. His suicide note had been addressed to his younger brother, Velwyn, and rumour had it the only words it contained were: 'I'm sorry'.

(I have heard madness runs in families. There are times when I see the same haunted shadow in his brother's eyes.)

"Poor Ebben," Millona murmured again, then glanced at me. "But I believe I owe you a dance."

~o~O~o~

Millona's skirts rustled, her hand in mine as we took to the dance floor. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and I found myself thinking as the music started up how lovely she was.

She danced finely, as soberly as she seemed to do everything else. But her body was warm against mine, even considering the sweltering heat that shimmered down from the chandelier and its hundred beeswax candles.

It was if the rest of the world had been ripped away to Oblivion, and there was nothing but the two of us. Nothing but the press of her body against mine, and the delicate threads of gold threaded through her plait which I hadn't even noticed until I saw the candlelight glinting on them. All the sorrow in her eyes had now fled, and there was nothing but warmth and amusement and a thoughtful kind of quiet joy.

And I regretted that this moment would have to come to an end. We would turn and tap, and turn again, and the dance would be over. Even as I thought this, she leaned closer, rising on tiptoe. The sudden press of her body made my breath catch in my throat. I lowered my head so I could hear what she said above the music, felt her warm sweet breath against my cheek.

"Am I wearing a mask, Corvus?" she whispered.

I lowered my lips to her ear, my hand resting gently on her back between her shoulder blades. My lips brushed against the lobe of her ear, and she drew in a shaky breath. "You might have been," I whispered. "But I don't think you are any more."

~o~O~o~

Gods, those days. Those early days when the world seemed brighter, sharpening into focus as if I'd never quite been able to see it clearly until I had met Millona. There were moments when I would find myself smiling like an idiot for no reason, because the wind and the rain and the birds seemed to have been put on the world purely for my pleasure and for hers, and there was nothing else in the world that mattered more than the two of us.

I had plenty of reasons not to smile: because my money was running out, because every time I saw Lucar Umbranox his expression seemed a little more murderous. After the dinner party I became a regular visitor to the castle, joining the ranks of the hangers on, one courtier among many. And in between, from time to time, Millona and I would sneak out again, shed the masks we wore and watch the sunset from the dunes.

It might have gone on indefinitely if it wasn't for Sam.

One night a thief I vaguely knew stopped me on the street with the news. Word was that someone had tried to kill Sam, and an attack on my Doyen wasn't something I could ignore – not after everything he'd done for me, and how he had put his faith in me. I had no choice: I had to leave Anvil.

~o~O~o~

From my perch on the slates of the castle roof, I threw down a handful of stones, letting them rattle against the window. Millona, seated on the window seat, leaned out, her eyes widening as she saw me. "Corvus, what in the world–"

I slid down, landed in a crouch on the balcony. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't–" She broke off and caught my arm, tugging me closer and out of the circle of light cast by the torch wielding by the guard patrolling below. I'd be lying if I claimed the image flicking through my mind was entirely chaste. It was the moonlight lit her face, how it made her skin seem to glow from within.

"You didn't scare me," she said, lowering her voice. Lunar moths danced around the lantern that lit her balcony, their soft luminescent wings fluttering in the air. "Corvus, what are you doing here?"

The words caught in my throat. I moved to the book she'd left face down on the window seat, aware of her gaze on my back. "You know, you really ought to–" And as I spoke I turned the book over in my hands, caught the title: _Thief of Virtue_.

I knew it.

I'd read it.

There isn't a literate young male thief who hasn't read it. It's the purest, filthiest form of wish-fulfilment for any of us. I'd read out the filthier parts aloud to the others in a silly voice and then again alone in private with a quiet burning fascination. Heat crept up over my cheeks at the thought of _Millona_ reading it. "Um..."

"I really ought to what?" Amusement glinted in her eyes as she held her hand out for the book.

I snapped it closed and handed it to her. "Take better care of your books."

"You remind me of my father sometimes."

Oh gods, I hoped not.

"Did you just come here to lose my place in my book, or did you have another reason?" There was a slight wine stain along her upper lip, and I longed to wipe it away with my finger, to trace her lips with my finger. Then to cup the back of her head, and draw her into a kiss.

Godsdamn, why was this so hard? Not like I was a fumbling idiot virgin who knew nothing about women. I hadn't felt this helpless around a woman in years.

A moth fluttered down and landed on the back of my hand. I moved to shake it off, but Millona caught hold of my arm and murmured, "It's supposed to be lucky."

"I'm leaving," I said, suddenly, my voice harsher than I'd intended. I had to force the words out because I knew if I didn't I wouldn't be able to say them at all, and then I'd never be able to leave Anvil. An expression flashed across her face, too fast to catch, before she caught herself, and her expression smoothed over.

"You're finally returning to Morrowind?"

I shook my head. "Just to the Imperial City. I have business there. It can't wait, or I would have waited until the morning. I just... I wanted you to know."

She drew away from me, smiling now, but it felt like a mask. "When will you be back?"

"I'm not certain I will be coming back."

And now, I wasn't imagining it. There was a flash of disappointment – genuine disappointment – in her eyes, before she turned her face to study the moth on my arm. I felt pinned in place, by the tickle of its feet and by the weight of Millona's hand on my arm. And if she had asked me to say in that moment I wouldn't have been able to refuse. I would have stayed and fuck my loyalty to Sam, to my brothers in the guild. The whole lot of them could be damned, and never mind everything they'd done for me, everything I owed them.

And gods, how I wanted her to ask me to stay.

She stayed silent.

I licked my lips, cautiously. "Unless you... unless you want me to come back..."

She leaned forward, and blew gently on the moth. It took flight, circling back up towards the lantern, and Millona lifted her gaze to watch it go. Her hand remained on my arm. "I want you to come back," she said softly.

"Then..." I hesitated. My every instinct was telling me what a terrible idea this was. What exactly would I be coming back to Anvil for, anyway? To carry on flirting with a woman leagues out of my station while her father glowered at me over the rim of his glass of expensive wine, no doubt plotting my imminent death?

Truth was, it hurt. It was fun sometimes, watching her, watching her watch me. But it _hurt_. Wasn't like I could ever marry her after all. One day she'd get betrothed to some nobleman, Marus Goldwine, most likely, (and by the gods, what a terrible husband he'd make her), and my heart would be broken.

And still, I doubt there was a force on Nirn, Man or Mer or Aedra or Daedra, that could have prevented me from catching hold of her hand and kissing it. "Then you'll see me again, My Lady, I promise you," I said.

Her hand twisted in mine, she took a step closer, and for a long moment we both seemed frozen in time, her head tilted back, her eyes on mine, while I willed myself to kiss her.

I didn't.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are hugely appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen**

' _Oh, look, an Imperial in the Imperial Prison. I guess they don't play favorites, huh? Your own kinsmen think you're a piece of human trash. How sad. I bet the guards give you "special" treatment before the end. Oh, that's right. You're going to die in here, Imperial! You're going to die! Imperial criminal scum like you give the Empire a bad name, you see. You're an embarrassment. Best if you just... disappeared._ '

– Valen Dreth

The journey to the Imperial City took me three days, and when I got there the mood in the bath house was edged with panic. The talk was Sam had been ambushed by the City Guard outside the bath house, and although at first it looked like it might have kicked off, he'd ordered his men to melt into the shadows and had allowed himself to be shackled right there on the street.

No one, not even Armande, was able to tell me what was going on, only that Sam must have really, _really_ pissed someone off. Under normal circumstances a man like him couldn't be kept in prison for long. He had too many high-ranking officials in his pocket – purely for insurance purposes, you understand. If the guild had to resort to a spot of gentle blackmail every now and then, well, what of it? We honest thieves had to live, same as anyone else.

When I visited the jail to speak to him I was thrown unceremoniously out onto the street by a guard who looked like he'd been thwacked in the face with a frying pan. I picked his pocket while he was doing it, but that didn't do much to mend either my dented pride or my worry about Sam.

It's said that no one has ever managed to escape from the Imperial City Prison, but that's just what they want you to think. There's no such thing as an impregnable prison. There's always a way out.

It's just that sometimes the way out is actually the way in.

~o~O~o~

It takes skill to pick a pocket without being detected, but it takes a true master to do it and get caught. It went against my nature, how clumsy I had to be. It felt like ruffling a cat's fur the wrong way until it spits and bares its claws.

It took me three tries before I managed it, my target the older of a pair of guards chatting to an apple seller in the market. He had a face like a shaved bulldog, and eyes kindly enough that I was fairly sure he wouldn't just decide dragging me off into an alley and kicking the shit out of me might be easier.

The expression he turned on me when he clamped his hand around my wrist was mournful.

"Ah, now, lad," he said, wearily. "None of that."

"I'm sorry," I said, letting fear creep into my voice. "I don't... I don't have coin to pay the fine–"

"Ah shite." He sighed. "Well, go on then. Piss off."

I blinked. "You what?"

He jerked his head down the street. "I said piss off."

"So you're not going to... to arrest me?" _Shit_. This wasn't going as planned.

"Hardly seems worth it. Only had a couple of Septims in any case. In fact..." He unfurled my fingers and pressed the Septims into my hand. "You're that desperate you can have 'em."

I stared down at them, then up at him. This definitely wasn't going as planned. Damn it, what did it take to get arrested in this city? "I don't want your money."

His brows knotted. "Why'd you try to steal from me then?"

"Um–"

"Sir!" His younger partner was jiggling on his heels, face purpling. "No matter how minor the crime–"

The older guard raised his eyes to the sky. "Leave it, Lex."

"But sir–"

"I said bloody leave it." And he rolled his eyes at me, asking me to commiserate. "It's hardly worth the hassle."

"But he's a thief! If he can't pay the fine–"

"Right. Fucking _right_." The older guard yanked the coins back from my still outstretched hand. "Five Septims. He's paid the fine. We're done."

"But that was _your money!_ "

"And I gave it to him, so it's his, therefore he's using it to pay the pissing fine." His gaze snapped towards me. "Aren't you?"

"Erm..."

Before I could answer, he turned back to Lex. "There? You see?"

I glanced at the apple seller who was earwigging on the argument in goggle-eyed fascination. I was starting to feel that I might have inadvertently stumbled on something here.

"You can't do that!"

"I pissing well can! Because I outrank you, and my shift ends in half an hour and there's no pissing way I'm dragging this piss-artist all the pissing way to the pissing prison to be processed over six pissing Septims. Not again, Lex. Not _again_."

"It's the principle of the thing," the young guard argued. "No matter how minor the crime–"

" _Lex_. That's enough. That's an order."

The young guard shot a glower at me, then back at his partner. "I thought it was five Septims."

"It was six."

Lex considered this. "So you're saying he tried to bribe you."

The older guard's expression went still. It was the expression of a man who had been pushed to the very edge. He lifted one trembling finger. "Lex?"

Lex shifted uneasily, clearly suspecting he might have gone a bit too far. "Sir."

"In a moment this young man is going go on his way, and we are going to go on ours. And that's an end to the matter. Do I make myself clear?"

"But the law–"

" _Lex_."

Lex subsided, looking desperately unhappy. "As crystal, sir."

"Wonderful."

"So wait..." I found my voice. "You're not going to arrest me?"

They both turned to stare at me, Lex flushed and flustered, and the older guard with a howling void of utter despair and suffering in his eyes that made me wonder exactly how long he'd had Lex for a partner. "There, you see?" the older guard said. "Anyone that slow on the uptake has to be simple. Wouldn't be right to arrest him, would it, Lex?"

Lex squinted upwards. "No?" he asked a passing cloud, and the older guard clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good lad. Listen, I know you mean well, but all this 'Never Compromise' horse-piss, it doesn't work in the real world. After our shift's finished, come down to the Spotted Boar with me, I'll stand you an ale, and teach you a thing or two about a thing or two."

"Alcohol is a soporific for the soul. I never touch a drop."

"Ah, now see, that's one of the areas where a little compromise does a guard the world of good. In this world, Lex, sometimes you have to..."

I gawped after them as they started to walk away. Bugger. The stall holder was still listening in fascination to the argument between the two guards. I cleared my throat, and his eyes darted my way.

"I really am sorry about this," I said. Just enough time for his brows to knit as he wondered what I was on about and then I leant down, gripped the sides of the stall and upturned it. It crashed on the cobbled streets, scattering apples everywhere. The stall holder stumbled back, spluttering, eyes wide with shock as I booted an apple across the street. It struck the wall next to the two guards, who were turning to stare at me, Lex with an expression of outrage, and the older guard wearily pinching at the bridge of his nose.

" _Now_ will you arrest me?"

~o~O~o~

They were unexpectedly gentle. I'd expected at least a punch to the kidneys or a lazy backhanded blow, but they only took my details, and shoved me inside the cell to serve my brief time. I waited until the jailor had done his rounds, then picked the lock, prowled along the corridors until I found Sam.

I'm not sure what I'd expected: my Doyen chained to the wall, shivering, beaten and half-starved perhaps. Instead I found him lounging in a large spacious cell, with a brazier burning and a jug of wine and a pricy beeswax candle on the table.

He lifted his head when I hissed his name through the bars. "Jack? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Hold up, I'm just..." I gritted my teeth as I picked the lock: one tumbler snapping into place. Two.

There were footsteps in the corridor, a guard coming my way. The light cast from his torch illuminating my position, his footsteps so close he might have been behind me.

 _Shitshitshit, come on, come on._

His shadow lurched across the wall, and my gaze darted up to it, as if a shadow could grab hold of me. And then the last tumbler snapped into place and as the guard rounded the corner Sam opened the cell door open and yanked me inside.

My shoulder thumped against the wall, and I mouthed, "Ow," at the stones. Then I pressed myself closer to them, shrank myself as small and inconspicuous as I could. Sam had closed the cell door and nodded to the guard, who turned out to be Frying Pan Face

"Evening."

"You all right, Sam?"

"Just stretching my legs." His hand gripped my shoulder and shoved me back, pressing me back against the wall. As if I needed persuading. "Mind you, I'd rather be stretching other things. No chance of some company, no? Of the, er, female persuasion? It's a lonely-feeling sort of night."

"Wish I could oblige, Sam, wish I could. But the guvnor's got the arsehole. He's in the shithouse with the wife, and he'd do his nut if he heard the prisoners were getting some when he's stuck sleeping on that hideous Dwemer bench his missus went and bought."

"Poor fucker."

"Aye. Ask me, I'd rather be locked in there with you any day than married to his missus and never mind the fine pair of tits on her, eh?" He gave a dirty laugh. "Get you aught else, Sam?"

"Nah. Maybe another candle or two, but I'm right for the moment. And try not to pass this way too often, eh? If I can't get a whore, I'll have to find some other way to entertain myself."

"Aye, I bet you will, you dirty bugger. You Bretons are all the same. Entertain yourself with thoughts of the captain's wife, eh? I'll leave you to it then."

"Night."

And the guard's tuneless whistling carried on down the corridor.

"Well," Sam said softly, "we should have a bit of privacy now. He might have a nosey if I had a woman with me, but he's not the sort to spy on a man wanking himself off." He swung abruptly around on me. "Want to explain what you're doing here, Jack?"

"Um... yeah..." I peeled myself away from the wall, and glanced around the cell. It even had a bed, instead of a bedroll crawling with lice. "This is your cell?"

"No, it's the College of fucking Winterhold. Of course it's my bloody cell. What'd you do?"

"Got myself arrested."

"Ah, shit." He rubbed his forehead. "Why?"

"Why do you think? I heard you were in trouble, that you'd been arrested. I came to break you out."

"Kid, I'm _Samuel Bantien._ You really think I'd be here if I didn't want to be?"

I stared at him, and a slow creeping realisation began to take form. "You got yourself arrested on purpose, didn't you?"

"The penny drops. Thank fuck. I hadn't thought you were quite that slow-witted. Yeah, I got myself arrested. Want to take a stab at why?"

"I'd heard you got in a fight. Someone tried to kill you."

He drew up his shirt, and twisted around to show me a healing scar on his back. "Excellent guess. Now would you like to have a guess at who that fucker was?"

A sick feeling roiled in my gut.

"Go on," he said. "I'll give you three goes."

 _Shit. Shitting shitting shit._ "It wasn't..." _Oh fuck_. "It wasn't Varian."

His lips twisted. "Are you making a guess at who it was or who it wasn't?"

 _Fuck_.

I sank down at the table and put my face in my hands. "This is my fault."

"Yes, it was," he said. I lifted my gaze to meet his, and his eyes were glittering, filled with dark accusation. Then he snorted, seized the bottle of wine, and poured us both a generous glass. "And, no, it wasn't. He's always been a pushy cunt. It was going to come to a head sooner or later. Just turned out to be sooner than I was expecting, is all." He gripped my shoulder and shook it. "Don't take it to heart, kid."

"But how can I not take it to heart?"

He sighed. "See, that's the thing. You're a cocky little shit, and I know you're going to find this hard to believe, but sometimes it's not all about you."

~o~O~o~

"Well, maybe he's right," Armande said later. "Sometimes it isn't actually about you."

Irritation prickled at me, and I glared at the top of his head. He was bent over a ledger, tallying up a haul, and he had been remarkably unsurprised at the news of Sam having got himself arrested. Suspiciously so, in fact.

"Did you know?" I asked.

He glanced up. "Know what?"

"About Sam. That he hadn't really been arrested."

"Maybe."

"And you didn't tell me? I was practically shitting myself."

"Yeah." He slammed the ledger shut. "And you should've known better than to be worried, and about _Sam_ , of all people. Of course I fucking knew. He told me not to tell anyone."

"And you're loyal to him," I said, thinking that there'd been a time when he'd been loyal only to _me_. Then I caught the whine in my voice, and winced. I sounded like a little brat. "Anyway, have you got any work for me?"

"I was starting to think you'd given all that up. Gone straight."

"Me? Ha, like that'll ever happen."

He grunted, and drew a sheet of parchment towards him. "What sort of thing?"

"Anything and everything. Whatever you've got. I'll take it all. The gods know I need the cash. I'm verging on broke, and I need to pay off my tab in Anvil."

"Why bother? I liked that Bosmer too, but..." He studied me, frowning. "You're not thinking of going back?"

"I promised Millona I would."

"Talos wept." He closed his eyes. "Jack–"

"Have you got any work for me or not?" I snapped.

His lips tightened, and he shot an angry look at me. "There's a couple of jobs, actually. You still a member of the Mages' Guild or have they come to their senses and kicked you out?"

"Not yet. I'm still an associate, gods help the poor bastards."

"Good. Well, you can start there"

~o~O~o~

Joining the Mages' Guild was one of the first things I did when I came of age. It meant there was always a bed to stay in and a free meal to be had no matter where in Cyrodiil I find myself. Luckily my lack of any magical talent whatsoever didn't seem to make a lick of difference. I wasn't the only talentless fuck-wit in the guild, let's put it like that.

And there were compensations. The Mystic Archives was one of the finest libraries in Cyrodiil, and I could spend hours browsing the stacks, exploring to the furthest reaches of the library where motes of dust danced in the light that streamed through the vaulted windows.

It made my hands itch sometimes. There was temptation to be found between those stacks and some of the books were priceless. Perhaps it was for the best that Hannibal Traven changed the rules – it would have been far too easy to pick one up and waltz off with it. Why I didn't, I'm not sure: I certainly wasn't above to stealing from my fellow mages. Perhaps it's because all the books were freely available to me, even the delicate ones, which were brought to me with reverent care. There is something holy about libraries, and to steal a book away would have felt like desecration, so I limited myself to stealing from my fellow mages instead, and took no notice of how Jobasha sulked.

The job should have been a tedious one, stealing a blessed silver dagger from an evoker by the name of Petry Kolton. It was the sort of job I could have done in my sleep; it wouldn't pay much, but it'd go a long way to wiping out my slate with Maenlorn, and it'd be quick and easy. Or it should have been. Unfortunately, Petry Kolton, the inconsiderate bastard, had buggered off on an expedition to some Ayleid ruins and wisely taken his dagger with him. So instead, I wasted some time browsing idly in the Mystic Archives, while trying to establish exactly when he'd be back. My tentative investigations and nosings suggested it wasn't likely to be anytime soon.

Finally I ended up in the Lustratorium, because even if I would never make even an incompetent mage, I could always pretend becoming an alchemist was an option. I sprinkled a pinch of rock salt into the mortar, and mixed together a paste of arrowroot and fly amonita. The aroma was at first sweet, with a lingering bitter aroma so strong it made my eyes water. I dipped my finger into the paste and gave it a cautious sniff before licking it delicately, then drew my book closer. The page was strewn with my careless, chaotic notes, all written in the barely legible spidery scrawl I used when I wasn't forging, and which even I struggled to read at times. I dipped the quill into the inkwell. While I scribbled another note, my gaze slid off to the next table where a Bosmer woman had been giving me sideways glances. I shot her a testing-the-waters grin, and she smiled back, before shyly ducking her head, breaking the eye contact.

 _Hullo._ I grinned down at the note I'd just made, punctuated by a blot of ink and underscored with a smudge. Unthinking, I replaced the quill on its stand and wiped my stained fingers on my trousers. Apparently my visit to the University wasn't going to be a total waste of time after all.

The upstairs door opened, and on the landing two mages argued about something or other. The louder of them was Nibenese, and was trying to keep his voice down, but he had the kind of voice that carried, and something about it tugged at my attention. At least, it would have done if not for the Bosmer sidling closer. She set her own notes on my table and leaned closer. "I don't suppose you wrote down the formula for the Feather potion that Magister Ostensia spoke of in her lecture on the practicalities of fieldwork, did you? Because I've been trying differing ratios of Somnalius frond and flax seeds, and no matter how hard I try I can't seem get the mixture right."

"I'm afraid not," I said, because having the formula would have required me to actually attend lectures.

Her eyes lingered on me, creasing at the corners. "Well," she said, slowly, "Perhaps you could take a look at my notes and see if you can make out what I've written?" Her slender finger rested on the page of her notebook. Her writing was far neater than mine, laid out with care and deliberation. "I can't make head nor tail of it myself."

Look, here's the thing. I wasn't a monk (not yet, at least, but I mustn't get ahead of myself) and as much as I liked Millona, well... it wasn't as if that was anything more that a diverting flirtation, was it? It wasn't as if it was real. This Bosmer, with her white-blonde wispy hair, with her lips that twisted up so wickedly at the corners, and her fingers stained dark with alchemical juices... she was here and she was real.

On the landing, the disagreement was starting to take on the tones of an argument. "I don't give a damn," the Nibenese mage was saying. "Tell the fucking apprentice the work isn't fucking good enough. If he doesn't like it he can come and see me directly and I'll tell the fucker myself."

I bent my head closer to hers, and leaned close, to trace my fingers down the paper, feeling the faint indentations of her pen beneath my fingers. "I'm not sure. Do you think it could say three parts flax seeds? That looks like a three to me."

And still I found myself glancing up as the mage who'd been speaking came stamping down the stairs. I didn't see his face, only a flash of blond hair as he jerked the door open and stormed out, slamming it shut behind him. Bulky for a mage, big for a Breton. And familiar.

I wiped my hands on my robes, and said to the Bosmer, "Hold that thought a moment, will you?"

She looked a little startled, and opened her mouth to say something. Whatever it was I didn't hear. I weaved through the desks, past a pair of sniggering apprentices who were flinging ingredients into their equipment in the hopes of getting something to explode, and followed the figure out of the Lustratorium. A lecture had just finished, and the semi-circular commons was teeming with mages, discussing the topic, which seemed to be the theory and practice of spell crafting, and how it could be both supported and impeded through judicious enchantments on articles of apparel. Through the crowd, I thought I saw the figure moving towards the Mystic Archives.

Inside the library there was no sign of him. It was almost lunchtime and it was quiet. A mage sat at a desk, writing with a frantic energy that suggested the essay he was working on might be due in a couple of hours. I opened my mouth to ask if he'd seen anyone, but the desperate skritch of his quill and the set of his mouth suggested he wouldn't welcome being interrupted. I moved into the stacks, listening out for movement.

 _There._ Seeing a flash of grey robes, I turned down the section on history, startling an elderly Imperial so badly he almost dropped his book. I apologised, and turned back.

 _Just my imagination,_ I told myself, but uncertainty still squirming in my gut. Because I'd been so sure–

I moved deeper deeper into the library, to where a magelight cast its soft glow over the darker recesses of the shelving. Someone unfurled behind me and seized me from behind. I reacted without thinking, stamped down on an ankle. The figure grunted in pain, picked me bodily off my feet and slammed me against the wall. As dust cascaded down a fist closed around my throat.

Brey.

Older now, with a man's build, and reddish stubble on his jaw, but it was unmistakably him.

" _Jack?_ " His grip around my throat tightened as his eyes narrowed. Not quite enough to choke me, not yet, but he wasn't far off. "Were you following me?"

"Of course not." I considered this, then grimaced. "Well, yeah, sort of. But only because I wasn't sure it was you."

"So you're trespassing on Mages' Guild property."

"I've every right to be here. I'm an associate of the guild."

He snorted at that. "You? _You're_ a mage? You're telling me you've discovered a secret store of magicka that's just been extremely well hidden all this time?"

"Not even a drop. But it looks like they're taking anyone these days." My voice was strained thanks to his grip around my throat. "Are you going to kill me?"

He stared at me, his expression dark. "No," he said finally, and released me. "But I'll let you buy me a drink."

~o~O~o~

We went to the Pestle and Mortar, an expensive inn tucked away in the Arboretum, with multiple floors, and a balcony overlooking the gardens. There was soft murmuring as we entered and a group of mages in a corner glanced up for a moment, then one of them leaned forward and muttered something under his breath to the others. Laughter rose from the table, and it wasn't exactly friendly.

We ignored them. I ordered us a bottle of wine, and the landlord named a price that made me flinch. I was used to places like the Flowing Bowl and the Rat, where the alcohol was gratifyingly cheap, even if it did taste like watered-down horsepiss. I got the good stuff from time to time, but usually because I'd stolen it. Brey watched me count out the coins and slide them across the bar, and by the way his lips twisted when he looked away I suspected he'd insist on buying the next bottle if there was one.

He'd gone north on the Green Road when he left Bravil, just like we had, but instead of passing through Pell's Gate and travelling onto Weye, he'd taken a wherry across the Rumare. The first place he'd come across had been the Arcane University. And because he'd been knackered, and could just about afford his first month's dues with the scant handful of coins in his pocket, he'd joined. He had done it for the same reason I had: for a bed and a meal and a roof over his head.

Except of course he could actually do magic. And he'd stayed.

"You're looking well," I said, and he was. Except for the hair, which was already starting to recede in a two-pronged assault. I could see the dome of his skull peeking through, and it made him look middle-aged already – the image of a mild-mannered Breton mage. Almost. His accent was startling too. Unlike me, who'd dropped the Nibenese twang the first chance I got, his had strengthened, and was now as broad as a rice farmer's from the Niben Delta."What happened to your hair though?"

"What happened to your _face_?"

I grinned. "That's an easy one. I got handsome. You, on the other hand, got bald. I do mean it though, you are looking well."

His glower eased, and he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah," he said. "Well, I guess you do too, as it happens."

"Told you," I said, knocking back my wine. "I got handsome."

"Not sure I'd go that far," he said. "But you've been in the city all this time? What about Armande?"

"Both of us, although not lately. I've been in Anvil. Armande's been travelling all over, to Hammerfell even, on the ships..."

"He's a sailor? Well, that hardly surprises me."

"Not a sailor. Not exactly. We're sort of what you might call... freelance adventurers."

His eyes narrowed. "Delving into ruins? Caverns and abandoned forts and that sort of thing?"

"I do a lot of delving into dark spaces all right," I said. "But it's more cunts than caves. I'm the urban sort of freelance adventurer."

"Oh. So you're still a thief."

"Yeah."

"The more things change."

"Yup."

"Except you never got any cunt when we were boys. Ain't sure I believe you get much now."

"Ha." I grinned, tilting back my chair. "Good thing I'm confident enough that I can smile blithely and let that godsrotted slander slide right off me." Although admittedly I hadn't got any in a while. Not since I went to Anvil, and that had been months ago. My thoughts ticked back towards the Bosmer again, and I wondered if she might forgive me for fucking off without a backwards glance. Then I thought about Millona, and my heart squeezed. "How about you? Do any delving of your own?"

"Mainly the Ayleid ruins kind for me. I barely have time for the other."

"Godsdamn." I let my chair drop and glared at him. "Everyone has time for the other, Brey."

"I don't." His gaze twitched off towards the table of mages as they burst into laughter again. "Between my work and my studies I barely have time to eat and sleep."

I paused, studying him. "You happy here?"

His gaze swung back towards me, sullen. "Yeah."

"I mean–"

"I like being a mage, Jack. It's something I can do. It's interesting."

But that, I noted, wasn't the same as being happy. Another gust of laughter, and one of the mages leaning back to say something. His voice was loud and it carried. Nibenese, but his accent was nowhere near as broad as Brey's, nor as coarse. A minor noble by the sound of it. "Friends of yours?"

"No."

"Good, because they seem like a bunch of arseholes."

"You always were perceptive. That's exactly what they are." He shifted. "Anvil, eh? The docks, I suppose. Snatching fish from the fishing boats like when we were boys?"

"Not exactly," I said. "And I wasn't doing much thieving in Anvil in any case."

He eyed me. "Are you happy, Jack? Do you like being a thief?"

"I'm happy enough." And I could hear the note of defence in my voice, the I'm-fine-stop-asking tone. "And I like being a thief too. Sometimes. Now that I'm not risking having the shit kicked out of me all the fucking time, by guards and friends alike."

"I'm happy to do the honours if you miss it."

"You're welcome to try it," I said, grinning, "And none of that magic shit. You'll find I've got a bit tougher since we were boys, and I'm betting you've gone soft."

He returned my grin, already seeming a little drunk, and it wasn't just the wine we'd been drinking. Oddly, his accent seemed to have softened a little, lost a bit of its twang. He was playing it up, the bastard, but I couldn't figure out why he'd choose to sound like a farmer in a place where everyone, even the Nibenese, strove to sound like they were Heartland-born and bred.

"I'm a regular delver into Ayleid ruins, remember?" he said. "I haven't forgotten how to fight, and I haven't forgotten how to batter you either." But he was smiling, and his shoulders had eased. Then he shifted again, eyes darkening. A mage in black robes was crossing the inn behind him. "The last ruins I ventured into were filled with necromancers," Brey said, his voice loud and clear and filled with venom. "Repulsive scum, like all their vile kind."

The mage stopped and slowly turned around. He was a Nord, his face an unholy alliance between a pug dog and a pair of eyebrows. It was the sort of face only a mother could love, and even she'd be a bit dubious. "What the fuck did you say?"

Brey gave a mock-start. "I do beg your pardon, Kalthar. I didn't see you there."

Those eyebrows bunched down, knotting above the mage's eyes. He took a step towards our table. "What the fuck did you say about necromancers?"

The chatter in the inn stilled to a hush. I glanced at the landlord: there's no better way to gauge how an altercation in an inn might go than the reaction of the man who knows his patrons better than anyone, and he had rolled his eyes up to the sky, looking weary and fed up.

Brey set his hands on the table and stood up. What little chatter remaining in the inn died, silenced as quickly as a pinched out candle."I said necromancers are repulsive scum," Brey said, his voice pleasant. "You heard, Kalthar. How many times do you want me to repeat it? The sooner your filthy corpse-fucking kind are turfed out of the Mages' Guild the better as far as I'm concerned."

I raised my eyebrows at my tankard. Okay. I was starting to see why Brey might not have many friends. Not that I liked necromancers much myself, but so long as they were working within the law, then–

No, I can't do it, sorry. Even the necromancers who obeyed the law and kept within the strictures of the guild gave me the fucking creeps. I do wonder one thing though: if they wanted to prove that necromancy wasn't fundamentally evil, why the fuck did they decide to make their official attire black robes with skulls on them?

"You rice-chewing piece of shit," Kalthar hissed. "I've about had enough of you. I've as much right to be here as you have. More, in fact. I didn't spend my early years shitting in mud and eating rats like a starving peasant."

"No," Brey said. "Just defiling dead bodies."

"Shor's bones! That wasn't what happened and you fucking know it! The experiment I was working on was sanctioned. I was well within my rights–"

"I don't think that was what the poor girl had in mind when she signed her corpse over."

"Right. That's _it!_ That's fucking _it_! I'm not taking your shit any more." He rolled up his sleeves, jabbing his finger at Brey. "You're a dead man. You're a fucking dead man."

"Fine, but just so we're clear, I don't give you permission to rape my corpse."

"You–" Kalthar's friends, the table of arseholes, rushed forward to hold him back, while Kalthar spluttered curses, and Brey grinned at him. Turns out a brawl in a tavern frequented by mages wasn't that different from a brawl in most other taverns, the 'brawl' being more about being held back by your friends than any actual fighting. One of them was the loud-mouthed Nibonese mage, lanky and the sort of handsome you only get through through hours of preening and plucking.

"Marcus," Brey said. "I might have fucking known. The only thing worse than a necromancer is an illusionist."

"Beg pardon, Brey," Marcus said. "I would have said 'hello' only I didn't recognise you. A rare sight, this, you sitting at a table with a... friend." His gaze flicked dismissively over me, his lip curling. "Tell me, did you have to pay him for the dubious pleasure of his company?"

 _Oh, you fucking arsehole_. I set my tankard down and stood up. As one, the mages shrank back.

I'd already been drawing some odd glances. As Brey's second, I ought to have been playing my role, the usual shit: leave it, Brey, come on, let's go, they're not worth it, but I was too quiet. In a tavern brawl it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. While most of the participants bluster and rage, the quiet ones are behind you somewhere, getting ready to cave your skull in with a bar stool.

This wasn't the first tavern brawl I'd been in, and I was betting the same couldn't be said about them. Mages or not, the lot of them looked soft, including Kalthar, the skull-wearing weirdo, even if he was a Nord. It's really not that hard fighting mages: the trick is to stop them from casting. A silence spell is the usual method, but since I was such an incompetent mage, that wasn't an option. In my experience, punching them several times in the throat is just as, if not more, effective.

"I beg," I said, speaking slowly, my voice pleasant, and my accent the strongest richest Colovian I could muster, "your fucking pardon?"

Marcus eyed me uneasily, then tugged on Kalthar's arm.

"Let's go, Kalthar," he said. "This peasant isn't worth it."

Kalthar shot Brey a look of contempt. "If I hear that story one more time," he hissed. "just once, I'll make you regret it."

Then they turned their backs and left. I sank down into my seat, glancing at the landlord, who was wearily pinching the bridge of his nose.

"So," I said, as Brey sat down. "Making friends then?"

He glowered down at what was left of his drink. "Fuck them. Fuck the lot of them."

"I thought you didn't have time for that sort of thing."

He lifted his gaze to me. "It's weird, at first I thought I would fit in here, you know? I'm Nibonese, I'm a Breton by birth... And I can fucking well do magic. I'm good at it. I belong here."

"But?"

He snorted. "I'm the wrong kind of Nibenese. And I'm the wrong kind of Breton. I'm not wealthy, I'm not educated, and there are some–" he jerked his head towards the door, "–who are thick as pig-shit enough to let that obscure the fact that I'm damn fucking good at what I do."

The innkeeper approached our table, passing his bar cloth from hand to hand. "Brey..." His accent was strongly Nibenese. "I like you, but you can't keep doing this. I mean it. Stop picking fights with other mages. Please? If it happens again I'll have to bar you, and I really don't want to be forced to do that."

And Brey was nodding, eyes closed. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. I'll try not to."

"Don't just fucking try. Do it, eh? For a Niben brother, even if you are a Breton. One of these days it really will kick off and I'll be left with a smoking ruin where my business used to be." He gave a squeeze of Brey's shoulder and returned the bar.

Brey kept his eyes closed, his shoulders hunched. He looked so weary and broken I had to change the subject. And actually it wasn't that hard because something was gnawing at me.

"What was all that about anyway?" I asked. "All that stuff about the sanctioned experiment and him being within his rights?"

"Oh. That." A dark grin spread across his face, and he gave a vicious little chuckle. "Well, he was telling the truth. It was sanctioned, and entirely within the law. The corpse was a donation to the college. Some people do that, sell their corpses after death to be vivisected and the like." He grimaced. "And to be used by necromancers."

I shivered. "How can they bear it?"

He shrugged. "Not everyone cares about what happens to their bodies after death. And not everyone is bright enough or capable enough to realise. The clerks are supposed to explain what it means, but, when a potential donor is focused on where their next bottle of skooma is going to come from, good luck getting them to grasp that. Anyway, the group he's working with signs out this corpse, but while they're working, there's an explosion in the Lustratorium, and everyone rushes out to see what happened, whether they can help, or just to gawp at the carnage. Everyone except for Kalthar who's too caught up in his work."

He paused to take a swallow of wine.

"So, when you reanimate a corpse, sometimes it retains vestiges of its former self. The stronger the spell and the fresher the corpse, the stronger the personality trace, right? And in her former life this woman worked as a prostitute."

"Oh fuck."

"Yeah." He was grinning now, a nasty teeth-filled grin from ear to ear. "So when the show's over and everyone trudges back inside the practice rooms, what they see is Kalthar leaning against the table with the corpse kneeling in front of him, and him with his hands on her head."

"Nooo. He didn't, did he?"

He shrugged. Flashed another nasty malicious grin. "He claims not. He _claims_ she overwhelmed him and tried to attack him and he was just trying to pull her off him."

"But you don't believe him?"

"He's a necromancer." He said 'necromancer' like goat-fucker, imbued the word with every scrap of loathing he can muster. "Not like they're known for their respect for the dead."

"And with a face like his you get it where you can."

~o~O~o~

We drank for a little while longer, and parted on good terms with drunken promises to meet up again. He headed back to the University, and I wound my way back through the Temple District, towards the Waterfront and home. But as I moved towards the bridge and saw the lighthouse ahead of me, a prickle on the back of my neck told me I was being watched.

A figure moved in the shadows to my left.

I reacted without thinking, as his blackjack swung in a slow, leisurely arc towards my skull. He was a hulking brute of a man, but slow. His eyes widened with a flash of terror, as I ducked under his arm. My fist connected with the underside of his jaw. His head snapped around. I clamped my hand around his wrist, and wrenched. Tore the blackjack free from his grip. Jerked it back and stabbed the end into the soft meat of his belly, driving the air from him.

More boots coming towards behind me. No time to look.

I gripped his long greasy hair,and drove my knee up into his skull, and as he crumpled, I brought the blackjack down. Tossing his limp body aside, I swung around towards the second of my two attackers. This arsehole I recognised: he'd been in the Rat the day I beat seven kinds of shit out of Varian, and from the flash of fear in his eyes, I knew he remembered me.

I bared my teeth, and shifted my grip on the blackjack, beckoned him on. "You picked the wrong man, you stupid fucker," I said. "Should have sent more men."

And behind me movement. The scrape of a boot against the wall, and a soft voice saying, "What makes you think we didn't?"

The arrow shaft punched through my arm. A wave of indescribable pain flooded me and the blackjack fell from nerveless fingers. I sought for words, found little beyond: "Ow! That fucking hurt–" which I never managed to finish. My tongue went slack in my mouth. My limbs locked and I plunged forwards into the swimming darkness, my chest so tight breathing seemed impossible.

 _Poison_ , I thought, but even my thoughts were losing coherency. _Those fuckers, they–_ And then there was nothing but a screaming song in my head.

A boot crunched in the dirt in front of my face. The arsehole squatted down, and shoved me over.

"He dead?" he asked.

"Shouldn't be." The archer dropped to the ground, and circled around me. He was light and slender, and no wonder I hadn't seen him straight away because his clothes seemed to warp the light around him.

"Might be better for us if he was," the arsehole said, working the blackjack from my hand. "Only saying, it might be better to slit his throat here and now. Claim we didn't have any choice."

The archer scoffed. "Are you really that much of a coward?"

"You ain't seen what he's capable of. Were you there the night Varian lost his eye?"

"You know I wasn't."

"He tell you how he lost it?"

The archer shrugged. "He told me he was beset by a gang of bandits."

"Aye, I'll bet he did." The thug jabbed his thumb at me. "It was him. This crazy fucker here. He's an animal. He snapped and beat Varian near to death for no reason at all. I've seen some shit but I ain't never seen anything like that. Look what he done to Merek."

"Merek was stupid and slow."

"Ain't the point."

"We're not killing him. Not yet. Unlike you I pay attention to the job I've been hired to do."

The arsehole went still. He cast a speculative look over his shoulder, and his hand flexed around the dagger.

The archer didn't move, only softly said, "I wouldn't," and the arsehole froze.

"Wouldn't what?" he asked, in the least convincing attempt at confused innocence ever. The archer shot him a weary expression, and the arsehole shrugged, bared his teeth. Then he turned that grin on me and I really wish he hadn't. "Looks like it's your lucky day," he said, before he swung the blackjack down and everything went black.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: The usual. Thanks to tafferling for betaing. All comments are appreciated. Constructive criticism is welcome. And thanks for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Nineteen**

" _By the way... do you happen to know what the fine is here in Cyrodiil for necrophilia? Just asking."_

\- Falanu Hlaalu

I woke with my hand bound in my lap and my head covered with a hessian hood. The reek of rotting potatoes did nothing to cover the stomach-churning stench of the sewers. Through the fabric, I could see a faint glimmer of a candle in the darkness. I moved my head and a sharp stab of pain spiked up the back of my skull, severe enough that I let out an involuntary cry of pain. Near the candle a shape moved, trying to be silent and not being terribly good at it.

"Hello, Varian," I said. "It's been a while."

The silent stillness went a little more silent and still. Then there was the catch of a breath, and rapid footsteps moved towards me. The hood was yanked away and Varian glowered down at me, a little older, a little fatter, and a lot uglier. His eye was a scarred mess.

I widened my own eyes at the sight of him. "Shit, what happened to your face?"

In reply he punched me, a jab of his fist from his hip. Hard enough to make my head snap back. My vision swam. I bunched my hands into fists, fighting the screaming agony in my skull. "Oh wait, I _remember_. I beat the shit out of you."

"I remember I was helpless," he said, his voice low. He hit me again, not so hard this time, but the lazy backhanded slap still hurt enough I almost blacked out.

I spat out blood tinged saliva. "That all you got? Almost like your heart's not in it."

"Oh, my heart's in it, all right. I've been waiting for this moment for... fuck, how long has it been exactly?"

"You mean since I beat you senseless, made you piss yourself and left you blubbering and begging for mercy in front of all your friends?"

 _I'm so fucked_.

"And by the time I'm through with you you'll know what that feels like," he said. "Now who's helpless? Now who's the one who's begging for mercy?"

I bared my teeth at him. "I think you might be hearing things, my friend, because it's certainly not me."

"Not yet. I hope you don't mind. I had your shoulder healed. Don't want you bleeding to death before I'm done with you, do we?"

"Very considerate."

"I thought so," he agreed.

We were in the sewers, one of those rooms with the vaulted ceilings, with the distant sound of dripping water echoing off the walls. Another man slouched on an upturned crate in the corner, drinking his ale and watching. There were more crates stacked against the walls, likely filled with smuggled goods. One of the crates stood open, its lid propped against its side.

"You know," Varian said, "someone once told me you don't like coming down here much."

The first chill of real fear ran down my spine. "Don't know what you mean."

"The sewers. I heard you'd do just about anything to avoid them, no matter what the job. What is it, Jack?" He parted my legs and squatted down between them. "Is it the smell that bothers you? Or is it the darkness. No wait, let me guess, it's the rats."

"I've never much liked wading through other people's shit. Funny that. Call it a quirk."

"It could be that. I know you're vain enough. But something tells me it's something else entirely."

There was a scraping noise from the next room. My gaze lifted to the archway, and a sick feeling lurched in my gut, cold rising dread. I jerked my gaze back to Viaran. He gave me a cold smile and nodded to his man, who stood up and ambled through the archway and out of sight. In the chamber beyond the scuffling sound grew louder.

"What's he doing?" I couldn't keep my voice from rising a pitch. I tugged at the bonds, but they'd known what they were doing. Given enough time, I might be able to flex and work my wrists to get a hand free, but I doubted they'd give me the chance.

The thug returned, and it was as if I'd been doused with ice-cold water.

He was herding a naked zombie ahead of him, using a leather belt around its throat to guide it along, and jabbing it with a blackjack every time it tried to twist back towards him. It had been female once, with shrivelled dugs now little more than empty flaps of skin. Its face was white and waxy-pale, gleaming like a moon through ragged black hair. I pressed back against the wall, my heart hammering in panic, hands clenching in my lap.

Then I remembered Viaran. How he was watching me. Drinking in my fear and savouring it.

Damned if I was going to give him that pleasure.

I turned my gaze towards him, hardened my voice. "It's a zombie. So fucking what? You think I'm scared of it?"

"Yes, actually." He reached out, gave two fierce little percussive stabs of his finger against my brow. "I can see your heart beating. That little vein right there, Jack. It's given you away. You're about ready to piss yourself, aren't you?"

I gave a mock-yawn and dropped my head back against the stonework. And still it took everything in me to close my eyes, because instinct was screaming at me not to take my eyes off the dead thing. "You'll have to try harder than that."

He leaned close. So close I could smell his sweat and grime, and underneath the rotting stink of the sewer that clung to his skin and clothes. It caught in my chest, made me gag. His fingers wrapped around the front of my shirt, the gentle, tender gesture of a lover. "We're just getting started."

 _Oh fuck._

He drew his head back, his good eye locking with mine. And perhaps it was wishful thinking but I thought I saw a flash of uncertainty in its depths. He was hiding it better than I was hiding my terror, but it was there. At heart, Viaran was lazy and he had a cruel streak, but he wasn't evil. Nico had got drunk one night, and all his tightly-guarded secrets had come spilling out. And it had been _nothing_. Just the lazy half-hearted cruelty of a gang towards a boy who wasn't quite part of their ranks yet, but might be soon.

I couldn't hide my fear any longer, because Varian's thug was pushing the zombie towards the opened crate, the muscles in his upper arms bunching. There were old bloodstains on its inner thighs, and my breath started to come in wrenching little gasps. My body prepared itself to flee, too slow and stupid to realise that it didn't have a fucking chance.

"Varian, please." My voice was a grating whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to you. It was a shitty thing to do, I'll make it up to you, _please_!."

Forcing it into the crate wasn't easy. It twisted and spat like a wild cat, wrenching at the thug's grip, teeth snapping at him. He struck it with the blackjack, jerked a hessian bag over its head and knotted it tight with the leather belt.

Her, not it. _Her_.

She'd been a woman once, and I focused on that, tried to see her as a person, not the unnatural monstrous thing she'd become in death thanks to some cunt of a necromancer. A victim with a hessian bag over her head, and dried blood on her thighs, and never mind the wet patch at the mouth where she was biting on the hessian, trying to gnaw her way free.

The thug gripped the back of her head, and forced her down into the crate, striking her with the blackjack when she clung onto the sides. And I was thinking, _Oh gods oh gods oh gods_ , because Varian's hand was twisting in my hair, forcing me towards the crate as well. I fought him, wrenched and bucked against his grip. Begged too, nothing clear or comprehensible, just a string of, _NononopleasenoI'lldoanythingpleasenopleasenopleaseno_.

The rising stink made a fist knot in my gut, and my breath came fast, shallow gasps of wrenching terror as I stared down into the crate and saw the thing waiting for me – not a woman at all but a monster. I twisted away, straight into a jab to my gut. All Varian's amusement had gone, and he was breathing hard like this was the most exciting thing he'd ever seen, but his expression was grim, his eyes a little bright and the light that shone in them was one of fear.

A tussle in a bar was one thing. We're thieves. We fight all the time. And maybe I gone a little too far that night in the Rat, but this: this was something else. The sort of thing you dreamed about but never actually went and did, because it was fucking monstrous. And he knew it. He didn't want to do this. I could see it in his eyes.

"Yeah, fucking hilarious," I said, twisted my head an inch so my eyes could meet his. Tried to keep my voice as even as possible. There was still a high note of panic in it, but that was all right: that was good. Because they could both hear how scared I was, and laugh about it later. "You wanted to scare the shit out of me, well you managed it. Now what?"

I could see him wavering, right on the edge of the path back to humanity, to basic human decency.

And then came a thud-thump from inside the crate, and the windows in his eyes snapped shut. A wrench of agony in my scalp as his fist tightened, and my reason fled. I wasn't even begging any more, just screaming, a high shrill scream of terror that might have shamed me if I'd been in any state to care.

The edge of the crate scraped against my legs, and the two men working in silence to force me into the crate. The zombie had scented living meat, wriggling like an eel. And then I was inside, a hand gripping the scruff of my neck like I was a wayward kitten. Boots thumped against the wood as I kicked out, the zombie waiting for me below.

"Like trying to drown a cat in a barrel," the thug said, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't seem to work.

And then the lid of the crate was replaced, and I was trapped in the darkness of a makeshift coffin, pressed against a dead thing.

I didn't lose my mind until I heard them drive in the first nail.

Mindless terror and dread closed around me like a fist of ice. I screamed and kicked at the sides of the crate, wearing myself out like a fool, while the zombie tried to turn her head back for a kiss. Only instead of lips and tongue there would be teeth.

The rattle of dead air in rotting lungs. The scrape of the hessian against my cheek.

One last twist and she was on her back beneath me, chewing on the hessian, and giving hungry little snuffling grunts like a pig after truffles.

I pinned her thighs beneath mine, wedged a forearm beneath her throat, wept and screamed and begged, praying that they were listening. Praying that they wouldn't just leave me here, locked in a coffin with a living corpse. That any moment now they'd lever out the nails and pull me out, drag me back into the world of the living.

They didn't.

~o~O~o~

Gods only know how long they left me there. How long passed before the lid was levered up. We'd both gone numb, the zombie's movements stilled beneath me, the only sound the click of her snapping teeth, my ragged breath.

I rolled my eyes up towards the dull light, squinting. Too numb to recognise the face that stared down at me.

"Shit," it said. "You're still alive. Got to hand it to you, Jack, when you stopped screaming I thought you were a goner for certain. I'm impressed."

I opened my mouth. No words came. Nothing but a rush of breath, that tasted so strongly of the rot I'd been breathing that I wasn't sure if I hadn't died myself.

He hauled me out. The thought I could fight them came and went, so quickly I didn't even notice it until it had passed. It was laughable. I couldn't do anything more than what I did, which was crumple to a heap and lie there, chest hitching.

His face wrinkled in disgust. "Looks like you went one better than me, Jack. You didn't just piss yourself, did you?"

 _Fuck you._ I couldn't do much more than mouth the words. A faint grunt sounded deep in my chest, and he leaned closer, cupping his hand at his ear. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

The grunt caught hold, spread throughout me until I was shaking, and suddenly my gut twisted, wrenched, and I vomited, bringing up everything in my stomach. It tasted of her, of whatever poisoned air I'd breathed in in that crate. I retched until my stomach felt like a wrung-out cloth, until there was nothing but gobs of sour bile, and my hair was soaked in it, and tears were burning on my cheeks and I was still shaking, because the ground felt like a body shifting beneath me, twisting up to kiss me like a lover.

If I was lucky, this would be the message he'd send to Sam. Me, shaking and crying and soiled with my own shit, like the coward I was.

But since when have I ever been lucky?

Gasping, I rolled over onto my back. "You got... what you wanted."

 _Varian_ , I thought. _His name is Varian_.

He said nothing, just kept staring at me.

"What was it you said? You wanted... me weak and helpless? Well, look at me now. You're done. Congratulations."

"Oh, we're not done. Not by a long shot."

And behind him the thug stomped to the crate with a hammer in his hands. Probably the same one they'd used to hammer me inside. The zombie's fingers had curled over the edge, and at the sight of those fingers I shook so hard I could barely breathe, could do nothing but watch the hammer rise, its arc slow and lazy. And then it swung down with a solid meaty crunch, once, twice, each time sending up a spray of thick dark liquid. There was a dull thump from within the crate, and I started to cry again. Partly for the faceless woman whose name I'd never know, but mainly, if I'm honest, for myself.

Varian kept his eyes on me. I felt the crunch of her skull, and he flinched too, uncertainty flickering again in his eyes. This was my chance, my chance to offer him an out. But my wits were dulled, and I was as good as broken, and I knew that it wouldn't do any good. His momentum would carry us all right through this night and into the morning, and there wasn't a damn thing I could say that would change it.

I'd deliver his message to Sam all right. And I might live and I might not, but either way it would be bad, and all I could do was cling on to life with every scrap of strength.

I smelled my own shit beneath the stink of the woman that clung to me. "What are you going to do to me?"

Varian held up his hand, and his eyes looked dull and distant as his thug placed the hammer in his hand.

"I'm going to make you bleed," he said.

~o~O~o~

They dumped my fractured body outside the bathhouse. Still alive. Barely. I was so covered with shit and blood and vomit, so broken and beaten, I was unrecognisable. It was Swims-Under-Moonlight who told me this. All the others, Sam and Armande included, said it wasn't as bad as it looked, and they didn't even realise they were lying.

But Swims-Under-Moonlight had been a whore for a long time, and she had the knack of looking at a situation and seeing nothing but the truth. She was the one who cleaned me up, a quivering mess of a man, curled up like a stillborn baby.

She wiped away my shit and piss and vomit without even a flicker of her nictating membranes – human shit is not Argonian shit: they have their own taboos and do not share ours – and she saw the injuries hidden underneath. She saw how bad it was, how every one of the bones in my hands had been shattered, my broken jaw and ribs.

She saw all of it and she told me afterwards, her rasping voice not soft and sympathetic, because she knew somehow that wasn't what I needed, but matter-of-fact. Over a cup of steaming hot canis root tea, she told me the truth.

I remember Sam, grim-faced, staring down at me with his arms folded. I remember being afraid of him. I remember turning my face because I couldn't bear to look at him. I'd mumbled something into my arm that might have been a weak "I'm sorry," or might have been something else entirely. Fuck you, perhaps? Since he'd been hiding away in jail where Varian couldn't get him, so he'd come for me instead.

I don't blame Sam. This was my fault. All of it. Varian probably would have come for me anyway, even if Sam could have been reached. There was a score to settle, after all.

They brought in the best healer they could, but even the finest practitioner in Restoration magic isn't a miracle worker. When hands are broken that badly they'll never quite work the same again.

Sam watched with quiet rage in his eyes as the healer gently teased out each one of my fingers. It was agonising: the burning itch of healing bones, pain so severe even the strongest soporific couldn't hope to contain it, and the gut-wrenching pleasure of restoration magic all combined to give me the hardest erection I'd had in a long time. They had to hold me down because I was fighting the healer, spitting threats and obscenities at him while he tormented me. But he'd worked with the legion in his youth. He'd heard much worse than I could come up with and from men who were far more dangerous than me. An idiot thief who thought he knew what he was doing. A boy who'd let a dead thing break him.

And all through it Swims-Under-Moonlight stood at my head, her cool hand gently cupping my cheeks.

They kept me in the bathhouse, established me in a room filled with shimmering light, with iridescent curtains of gauze surrounding the bed. It was a beautiful room, made for long lazy afternoons when you've got plenty of coin in your pockets and nothing better to spend it on, all cushions and silks and skin on naked skin, echoing with laughter and scented with smoke rings blown from painted lips. It became my sick-room, and Swims-Under-Moonlight my nurse.

In the darkness the billowing curtains of gauze hid monsters. Shadows stalked me through the tiled echoing corridors, the perfumed aroma hiding the stink of rotting flesh, and the pleasure that room had seen became a mockery because all I knew was pain.

My fingers had healed wrong. The healer had done his best, but they weren't anywhere near straight, and Sam drew out my fingers with a gentleness I hadn't expected of him, the pad of his thumb cupped in the palm of my hand. "The stupid fucker got it wrong," he said. "he fucked up."

"He did the best he could," Swims-Under-Moonlight said, and Sam grimaced, acknowledging this. And still...

I had a choice, he told me. I could leave my hands the way they were. I'd never be a thief again, not the way they'd healed. I'd never be able to pick a pocket unless the victim was already a corpse. Too clumsy. I could forget picking a lock ever again: even turning a key in a particularly stiff lock would be beyond me. My life as a thief would be as good as over.

Or.

Or I could let them break my fingers again. Every one. Break them and let them heal again more slowly this time.

I stared at my useless hands lying in my lap, bent into crooked claws. They hurt. Not all the time, but enough. Waking at night, with an itching ache deep in my bones that drove me mad. And it would only get worse as I got older.

I closed my eyes. "Who'd do it?"

"I will. If you want me to. We could bring in the healer again, but I wouldn't trust that arsehole with a-"

"Sam." Swims-Under-Moonlight's rasping voice was softly chiding.

"Yeah." He made a sound of disgust, still straightening out my fingers. His eyes were dark. "I know. He did the best he could. Still not fucking good enough, was it?"

"Jack's lucky he's alive at all," she said, and Sam's jaw tightened. His eyes flicked to mine for a moment, then away.

I stared at my hands and then brought my pleading gaze up to met Sam's. "And that'll fix them, will it?" _Say yes,_ I begged him with my eyes. _Say yes and tell me what to do._

He hesitated, not quite meeting my eyes. "They should work better than they do at the moment," he said, which was no sort of answer at all.

It wasn't any sort of answer and it wasn't any sort of choice. I didn't know what else I could be if I wasn't a thief. Certainly nothing I could do without fully working hands. And I couldn't bear the thought of returning to Millona with my hands hooked into claws, of having to explain what had happened, the convoluted lies I'd have to think up – an accident, a run-in with a family competitor. Lies poured on lies poured on lies, and I was bitterly sick of every single one.

"Do it."

"You sure? It'll hurt."

"It hurts now."

"Yeah, but this'll hurt like a cunt. And there's no guarantee they'll heal much better than they are."

"I thought..." My voice was hoarse, as broken as I was. "I thought you said there was."

He didn't answer that. Just kept on staring at me, and eventually I couldn't look at him any more. Shadows on the outskirts of the room drew closer. "Do it," I said, and closed my eyes.

And so my fingers were shattered all over again. One by one. There were more drugs, but even the strongest potions didn't do much more than blunt the worst of the pain. And my days once again descended into misery, and the promise I'd made to Millona that I would return was left at the side of the road, forgotten in the dust.

~o~O~o~

In the darkness the Fox returned. I had woken from a dream about Millona, about the expression in her eyes when she had told me she'd wanted to see me again. It seemed an age ago, something that had happened to a different person. I drifted in and out of a doze, wrapped in silken sheets. Pleasant dreams for once, but sometimes those were the dreams that hurt the most, waking to find none of it was true: that I was not in Anvil at all, but in the Imperial City, and just as broken as I ever was.

There was someone in the room with me, a shape half-hidden near the door.

"Who's there?" It hurt to pull myself up on my hands, so I used my elbows to drag myself up instead.

The Fox hesitated, then emerged from the shadows. She wore armour, and not the shabby stuff, but a carapace of gleaming glass that caught the light and scattered it like rainbows. I could feel the enchantments embedded in each piece as an itch in my throat. There were some perks to being guildmaster of the Thieves' Guild after all.

"Nice armour," I said, my voice hollow, mechanical. "Shame about the cowl."

"I have a glass helm to match. I never get to wear it."

"Is that enchanted too?"

She nodded. "An archery enchant."

"Maybe I should get me one of those." I lifted my twisted crooked hands. Better than they were but it was clear there was no point me ever drawing a bow again. Not that I'd been any use as an archer before, but now I'd never get the chance to learn. "Might help with my aim."

"Even enchanted armour can't work miracles, Corvus."

I laughed, a brief burst of genuine laughter, than my face contorted, chin puckering. A pathetic little baby's-gonna-cry face that made me want to clench a useless hand into a fist and start punching at the meat of my leg. But that really would have been pathetic, so I looked at her instead.

"Why are you wearing armour anyway?"

She glanced over her shoulder, then came into the room and sst on the vast cushioned bed beside me. There was weariness in every heavy step, and she held her arm as if it pained her.. She smelled of blood and smoke, of street-fights and sweat and violence, and beneath the cowl one of her eyes was swollen up. "Because the guild's at war."

"With Varian?"

She nodded. "And his people. What there is of them. He tried to pull a coup."

"And?"

She bared her teeth at me. "He's regretting it now."

I went to push my fingers into my hair, realised a moment later that it would hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, and dropped my hand with a grimace of frustration. Even the simplest little gestures were beyond me, and I kept forgetting. It'll get better, I told myself, and wished it didn't sound so much like a lie. "Has anyone been hurt?"

"You mean apart from you?"

"I'm fine. I'm like a dropped baby: I bounce. I can live through anything."

"Let's hope so. You might have to."

She started to removed her armour, unbuckling it piece by piece. First the gauntlets, then the greaves, her movements slow and painful.

"I'd offer to help," I said. "But..." I held up my hands, which were an explanation in themselves. And I was grinning again, baring my teeth, because I think if I hadn't I would have started crying and I wouldn't be able to stop. Beneath the cuirass she wore linen undergarments, damp with sweat, and clinging close to the curve of her hips and waist, to the slight swell of her breasts.

"Is it..." My voice broke. "Is it my fault?"

"No. This has been coming for a while. Maybe you triggered it, but..." Her hands curled into fists. "Godsdamned thieves. Like I have time for this bullshit."

"Aren't you a thief? You're one of us, remember? Our great guildmaster." I swallowed. "You didn't answer my question. Has anyone been hurt?"

For a moment, she looked like she was going to lie. Then: "Yes."

"Killed?"

"No one important."

My gaze snapped up. "Don't say that. Everyone's important."

She shrugged, like she couldn't be arsed arguing with me over such a trivial matter. "No one in your circle, anyway, and very few of mine. Mostly Varian's men, the bloody fools. They thought Sam was soft. They thought him too _kind-hearted_. And as for me..." Her smile was savage. "Well, they'll know differently now."

"I should've been there to help."

"I doubt you would have been much use in this state." Her gaze glance moved over the bed, the swathes of silk and cushions in which I nestled. "You know, you look like a spoiled Akaviri prince awaiting the arrival of his harem."

"If only. I'm starving. If I've a harem it's a bloody useless one if it can't even scrounge me up something to eat." I watched her, how she rolled her shoulder blades, working out stiff muscles. "Where've you been all this time anyway? Sam's been spitting feathers."

"Are you questioning my authority as guildmaster, Jack?"

"Well, someone has to. Sam'll just bite his tongue the way he always has done. Because he's loyal to you-"

"He's loyal to the guild, not to me."

"The Gray Fox is the guild."

"And gods is he sick of it." She twisted towards me, and reached out, placed a warm, sweaty hand gently over my eyes. I shivered at the touch, at the smell of sweat and a female body so warm and close, even if it did belong to the Fox and wore that hideous cowl. In a room like this my cock was never too far from hopeful watchfulness.

When the hand was lifted the Fox had gone. There was something strange about the woman before me, something familiar and unfamiliar all at once. I opened my mouth to speak and she placed a finger against it.

"If you say 'Where'd he go,'" she said, "I'll finish the job Varian started and I'm not nearly as soft-hearted as he was."

My hands itched. I believed her.

"Where'd who go?" I said, and she flashed her teeth. Her finger traced my lips, and then slid down, over my chin, my throat. Her hand pressed flat against my chest and pushed me down.

I nestled into the silken cushions, words catching in my throat because her hand was still travelling down, past the patch of hair around my bellybutton, and she was moving down with it.

My crooked hands splayed against the sheets. At that moment there was no thought uppermost in my mind other than to spend the rest of the day doing what this room was designed for, rather than lazing around, suffering and feeling sorry for myself. There were no words. Only the weak pressure of my useless hands on her head, and her mouth, hot and wet and glorious, working at me.

I rolled onto my side, her hair spilling over my thighs, and tugged at the hem of her linen shirt. She pulled back, and tugged it over her head. I buried my face in the band of linen wrapped around her breasts, the smell of sweat and arousal a hungry knot in my gut.

As my hand slid between her legs, she moved, catching my fingers badly, and a searing pain like nothing I'd ever felt before tore up my arm. It blinded me, left me shaking and breathing hard to fight the nausea.

"Corvus-"

"I'm all right. I'm all right." That was a blatant lie since I was still shaking, clutching my hand close. " _Fuck_." I breathed hard through my nose as the pain eased, until it had eased off enough that I could unclench my jaw. "I'm okay," I said again, and reached for her with my other hand, only for her to catch hold of my wrist. "But I want to-"

"No offense," she said softly, "but you're shit at that now."

I stared at her, shame burning my cheeks that something so fundamental, so basic, had been stolen from me. The hand she'd knocked still throbbed. There was a flash of something in her eyes – guilt, perhaps? – and then she was lying back, legs splayed.

Well, my hands might have been useless but my tongue wasn't. It was awkward, balancing my weight on my forearms, and she gripped my hair, forcing the pace, and not gently. Had my hands been in working order – or at least one of them – I would have reached down and paid myself some attention, since she seemed to have forgotten all about that, but that was out of the question so instead I ground my hips against the silken sheets, and focused on her, on the catch of her breath. Maybe I could learn how to pick locks with my tongue. Pockets too, perhaps, although that seemed a scenario ripe for misinterpretation. Probably better not, I thought, and a stab of hurt twisted in my chest.

But this, this I could do.

She seemed like a different person when she was on the verge of coming, stripped back to the young woman she'd been growing up, before whatever had happened that had brought her here to me. But even if that were true, even if in those moments to the soft little rich girl, she hadn't been gentle then either. She was careless of how she twisted and bucked, and knocked against my wrist again. An instant of agonising pain flared through me and I flinched away, only for her to twist her fingers in my hair with a throaty growl of reproach and jerk me back down.

No choice, not that I would have chosen otherwise, but still it made me rage.

She came hard, highs wrapping around my head, tight until they eased off, and she pressed her head back into the pillows, her fingers easing out of my hair. Her legs spilled open, and her gaze met mine, and despite the pain in my scalp and hands and my rage only fed into the hunger and urgency in my gut. I moved to cover her in an awkward crawl, felt her body beneath mine.

And I flashed out of the room. Found myself trapped in a place of darkness, which stank of rot, with a body pinned beneath my weight. Cold, waxy skin, and rattling breath.

I shuddered, and shoved myself off her, nausea roiling through me as I rolled onto my back.

She rose up beside me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's..." But my voice wrenched. I closed my eyes, found that didn't help, so instead I focused on the coolness of the silk beneath my skin. I shuddered again. "Gods."

"Corvus..."

I jerked away when she reached out to touch me, filled with shame and embarrassment and seething fury: at myself, at Varian for what he had done to me. And at her.

She drew up one leg, and rested her chin on her knee. "He didn't just break your fingers did he?"

 _He broke me_. "No."

"What happened?"

"It's not-"

"Corvus."

I drew my hands down over my face, and when I dropped them I was smiling. Or a close approximation of a smile at any rate. It didn't touch my eyes and I knew she'd never fall for it – she was too sharp – but it was as close as I could get. "He locked me in a coffin," I said. "With a zombie."

"A coffin?"

"Well..." My face felt strange, rubbery. Not quite real. "More of a crate really." And I glanced at her with that fixed grin, daring her to smile back. Daring her to laugh. She didn't. There was no expression at all on her strangely unfamiliar face. Who are you? I wondered, and for once I kept the question back.

Even now, I can't make love to a woman without risking flashing back to that coffin. I prefer the woman on top and candles burning. I joke it's because I'm lazy and I like to see a woman bring herself to orgasm so that I don't have to do the honours, but really it's about that coffin, because of that godsdamned crate in the sewers of the city. Because when I'm on top in the darkness, I'm back there, pressed in tight against lifeless flesh with the hessian sack scratching against my face and the stink of death in my mouth.

There isn't a woman alive who could live up to that. Not even Millona.

"When we find Varian," she said, "do you want to do the honours?"

"The honours..." I stared at her, all my the pain and fury forgotten. "You mean kill him?"

She didn't answer.

"No! I'm not a murderer."

She shrugged. "Your choice. I had a feeling that would be your answer, but Sam wanted me to ask."

I shivered, looked away. "What's Sam going to do with him?"

"Banishment." She didn't hesitate for a moment. "There's no other choice. He brought this on himself."

We don't kill in the guild. For each death caused in the course of our work a blood price must be paid. Deaths bring attention, and the truly skilled thieves should never need to kill. In theory we're above all that. We're not the Dark Brotherhood, after all. We don't kill.

Yeah, right.

Banishment is different to being expelled from the guild. It means that any guild-members who deal with you or offer any kind of assistance, who even talk to you, risk expulsion or banishment themselves. It sends out a message: we would prefer it if this person were to conveniently disappear. Might as well put a contract on their heads.

Thankfully it was rare. In the years I'd been a guild-member, I'd only seen two Banishments. One had been an unlucky bastard who'd killed a fellow thief in a tavern-brawl gone wrong, (and there but for the grace of all the gods went I), and the second had raped his partner after one too many drinks celebrating a successful heist, beaten her bloody afterwards in an attempt to shut her mouth. He hadn't beaten her quite enough.

And I knew exactly who had killed them both. No one gave a damn about the first, but the killer of the latter seldom found himself in a situation where he had to buy his own drinks. We'd all bought him a drink at one time or another, including me, and he'd quickly risen through the ranks. Not all thieves baulk at killing. We all knew the thieves who were particularly dagger-happy, the ones who spent a good-portion of their loot on paying off their blood-price and who didn't give a fuck about their murderous reputations. Who cherished them. The ones who might have been more suited to the Dark Brotherhood. The doyens always have methods of rewarding those who do their dirty work.

"Banishment," I whispered.

"He brought it on himself."

"I know but still..." I closed my eyes, flexed my aching fingers. "Don't do it. Please."

"Excuse me?"

I opened my eyes, stared at her. The grin was gone, the corners of my lips turned down. "I don't want him to be killed. Let me just beat the shit out of him instead. If it hadn't been for that night in the Rat, maybe... maybe none of this would ever have-"

" _Corvus._ " She snapped my name, Her expression had darkened. "The decision has been made."

"But don't I get a say in—"

"You arrogant little fucker. You think this is about you? It has absolutely nothing to do with you. It's about me and it's about Sam and it's about the guild. So no, you don't get a say in it. Sorry."

Something squirmed in my gut.

As she sank back on the bed, I rose up, reached for my clothes.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm done."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Are you sulking now? Did I hurt your feelings?"

I shook my head and began slowly to dress. All my anger had drained away, leaving me with nothing but a leaden weariness. "No. I mean I'm done. I'm finished with whatever the fuck this is." I snagged my trousers, and began slowly to dress, fingers aching.

"You mean with me?"

"I wasn't going to put it like that, but if you want. I doubt you'll be that disappointed, since you seem to hate me most of the time, but... yeah. I'm done. I'm tired. I'm going home. If I can't change your mind about Varian..."

"You can't."

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

She studied me for a moment or two. Her expression was blank, so smooth I couldn't even have taken a guess at what she was thinking. "And where's home, Jack? Or should I call you Corvus?"

"Call me whatever the fuck you want. I don't care any more. And since you won't even tell me your name, I doubt you'll take it too much to heart." And still the bitterness and the hurt was audible in my voice. I pressed my lips together, furious with myself, with her. I jerked my shirt over my head, and turned away from her, cursing softly under my breath trying to knot the ties at the neckline of my shirt.

She sighed. "Come here. Let me do it." I hesitated then sat on the bed beside her and let her finish the knot. "Your fingers still pain you badly?"

"A little. On occasion. When I've been working them too long or when they get knocked. I'll live."

"Right, I forgot. You bounce. I always thought you reminded me of something. Now I realise it must have been an inflated pig's bladder. The resemblance is uncanny."

"Funny. You remind me of a liver."

She waited, eyebrow quirked.

"You're full of bile."

She punched my arm gently, then leaned against me, her head against my shoulder. All the fight and cruelty and spite seemed to have drained out of her. "We don't have any choice about Varian," she said. "If we did, then maybe I'd consider it—"

"Isn't that the Fox's decision? Or Sam's?"

"Oh, fuck _off_." She sounded weary, like she couldn't be bothered to argue. "They both listen to me, all right?"

"All right."

"If it was just his attempt to kill Sam, then maybe we could have overlooked that, passed it off as nothing more than a scrap and settled for expulsion. But this... you were Sam's man, and you were mine, and to do what he did to you, he's spitting in both our faces. We can't let that stand. We _can't._ If we did, if we let this slide, the guild would break itself apart,. Every single thief would look at this and ask themselves why they're bothering to follow us when we can't even protect our own. There'd be slaughter on the streets. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah. I understand."

Her hand squeezed mine. "Good. And for whatever it's worth, I don't hate you. I never did."

"Could've fooled me."

"Well, let's face it, that isn't that hard to do." She paused. "You never answered my question. Where's home? The Imperial City or Anvil?"

"Oh. The Waterfront's home, I guess."

"And where will you actually be going?"

I was silent for a long moment. "Anvil."

Her breath exhaled. "Of course."

"I promised someone I'd return as soon as I could. Turns out I lied about that."

"My fault, I suppose?"

I shook my head. "It was mine. It was always mine. I should have gone back straight away. But I doubt I'll stay there for very long. It's not the sort of place where a man like me can make a living."

There was a silence. I disengaged from her, and pushed myself up. Began again to dress. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "You should tell her."

"Tell who what?"

"Don't play the fool. I know it's a role you've played for so long it's become a bit of a habit, but it's a bad one and you ought to break it. Your pretty little countess. You should tell her how you feel."

"How I feel?"

"That you're in love with her."

"That's ridiculous. I'm not—"

"So the world doesn't feel a little brighter when you're around her, the birds swinging more sweetly, and for the two of you alone."

"You're sounding bitter."

"I am bitter. You're right, I am full of bile. And I'm jealous." She caught the frown I tossed her way and shook her head. "Not of you. This was entertaining, and you're marginally better than average in bed-"

"High praise indeed."

"From me it is." She paused. "I'm jealous of what you have."

"And what's that?"

"Your freedom. And your life. And it infuriates me that, knowing you, you're just going to piss it up the wall like you do everything else. If you were smart you'd turn your back on this life and on me and run like Hircine himself was after you. Go to Anvil, Jack. There's an opportunity waiting there for you." She sighed. "If only you weren't too damn blind to see it."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Real life took over there for a week or two. Thanks to tafferling for betaing. And thank you for reading. As always, all comments are appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty**

" _Grim was the first and one by one, the boys had been droppin' off. They all got the same sickness I ended up with. We buried 'em when we could, threw 'em in the water when we didn't have strength to bury 'em. Finally, we jus' made 'em walk to the far side of the cavern a couple of days before the sickness ran its course._

 _I'm the last, an' I suppose that makes sense. The great Cap'n Dugal, defeated by Fasil Umbranox and buried alive forever. I wonder what became of Anvil. Prob'lly let it burn and swept the ashes into the sea. Umbranox prob'lly went back to the Imperial City to pat himself on the back and be rewarded with lands an' titles._

 _Like I said way back in the beginnin', I don't expect nobody to ever read this but if by chance someone does find my carcass down here in this pit, do an old seaman a favor. Track down whatever descendents that fat old sack Umbranox may have and tell 'em that Torradan ap Dugal says hello._ "

– From the journals of Torradan ap Dugal

I reined in my horse and gazed out over the valley, at a field of hops stretched out below us like the deep pile of an expensive rug. Nearby stood a cluster of oast houses, their pointed roofs like terracotta witches' hats. As my horse, a biddable mare, well-natured enough to tolerate my terrible horsemanship, bent its head to crop at the grass, Millona rode up beside me. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

I looked at her. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I said, and took pleasure in how her cheeks went faintly pink. "I don't know why I stayed away for so long."

"Unavoidable business, you said. It wasn't as though you could let your family down."

I grimaced. "My family's the last thing I want to talk about. Or think about. Ever again. Maybe I'll move to Anvil and turn my back on the lot of them. Become a shepherd. Or a fisherman."

"I thought you got seasick. And considering how you fled from that sheep–"

"It was a ram, not a sheep."

She burst out laughing. "I would have thought its lack of horns might have been something of a clue."

"Well, it was savage, whatever it was." My belly muscles clenched in instinctive panic as my mare lifted its head and took a few steps. I had to fight the urge to wrench on the reins. "It had murder in its eyes. But perhaps you're right. I wouldn't make much of a shepherd either. A brewery owner, perhaps? Or an innkeeper?"

"Ah, now that seems like it might be more in your line. Although you'd have to be careful not to drink up all your stock."

"Gods, are you really so determined to point out all my flaws? I'm a coward who flees from livestock, I can't set foot on a boat without wanting to paint the floor with my guts, and I drink too much. Is there anything else you'd like to point out, My Lady?"

"Just one thing, Corvus." And as she started to wheel her horse around, she cast back over her shoulder, "You're far too good at keeping secrets."

We crested the hill overlooking the sea, the Abecean Sea stretching ahead of us, a deep blue touched here and there with the white frost of cresting waves.

For a little while the beautiful view and the warmth of the sun on my back was enough to chase away all my fears, all the shadows that had been plaguing me since I'd left the Imperial City two months ago. We were no longer a young man with a questionable background and a future countess who really ought to know better, but a man and a woman, freed from their cares and responsibilities, riding their horses with light hearts beneath the summer sky.

For a little while it might even have been enough.

We found a peaceful spot overlooking Anvil's bay, the lighthouse standing like a sentinel watching over all. We tied the horses to a tree, and I sank onto the grass beneath the shade of the spreading branches, while Millona made a fuss over the horses.

"By the way, you do know your father's going to kill me?" I called out.

She glanced towards me, amused. "You're scared of my father?"

"No, not at all. I'm _terrified_ of your father."

She laughed, gave her horse one last caress and then came towards me. Her skirts whispered as she moved, her dress a startling green shot through with threads of sapphire blue, the silk slashed to reveal flashes of a contrasting underskirt of the same deep blue. I'd never seen her wear anything so fine: her clothing usually verged on austere, and I kept tormenting myself with the dream that she'd had it made especially and that she was wearing it for me and me alone.

She knelt beside me, her body so close it made me catch my breath. She smelled of horse, much as I did, but underneath lingered another perfume, so light and subtle it was easy to imagine it as the scent of her skin, and I longed to cup the back of her head, to feel the ridges of her plaited hair beneath my hand, to pull her in so that I could taste her sweat from the ride and the salt-brine of the sea-spray on her skin.

"The only possible reason you could have to be terrified of my father is if you were planning to do something wicked," she said, resting her hand upon my chest. "Are you wicked, Corvus? Qileel thinks you might be."

"Your lady's maid is a wise young woman." I placed my hand atop hers. "I'm the very wickedest of men."

"Is that so? May I ask in what way?"

"Oh, in every way. I'm a liar and a rogue. You'd be well advised to stay well away from me."

"But you accompanied me on my ride to protect me," she said. "Surely a wicked man wouldn't have offered to do that?"

"Ah, but who's going to protect you from _me_ , My Lady?"

"I suppose I should have to appeal to your sense of honour and decency. A pity then that a man as wicked as you claim to be would have none, don't you think?"

"Hmm." I shifted my head on the grass, and squinted up at her. "You know, `I'm starting to wonder if you've brought me out here on a pretext, Lady Umbranox."

"Oh? And what pretext would that be?"

"I think you brought me out here, under the guise of being your protector, in the hopes that I might seduce you."

"Well." She shrugged. "Since you can't even stand your ground against a sheep, I rather suspect it would be me protecting you."

I laughed, and tightened my hand around hers. "It was a _ram_."

Her gaze lingered on mine, a smile touching her lips. "It's good to see you laughing again," she said, then her gaze dropped to my hand. I tensed, but resisted the urge to snatch it away, to hide what had been done to me. The heat rose to my cheeks as she studied my fingers. They'd healed well enough, although they'd never work quite as well as they used to, back when I could pick a pocket as easily as breathing, but she'd be able to see they'd all been broken. It might have been why she hadn't pressed me too hard about why I'd broken my promise to her and stayed away so long. "Corvus, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course. Anything."

"What happened while you were away? If you don't want to tell me, if you _can't_ tell me, then I understand, but when you returned..." Her gaze flicked to my eyes and then back to my hands. And then away, towards the lighthouse, and I felt the weight on my heart ease. "Did something happen?"

I contemplated the easy lie, the words all ready on my lips, _Nothing happened. Everything's fine_ , but when it came to it, I couldn't lie to her. Not again. "Yes, My Lady, something happened."

"Was it bad?"

 _Bad_. I winced at how inadequate that word was, how little it captured what had happened to me. Like the word 'nightmare', for example: how it could scarcely hope to capture the clustering, clawing spirits that gathered around me while I slept, how I'd wake to see the zombie from the sewers kneeling by my side in bed. Or the woman in bed beside me, warm and comforting and familiar, and I'd wrap my arm around her to draw her closer only to find her skin cold, her mouth filled with teeth and the walls and ceilings closing in.

"Well, it wasn't a pleasant experience."

"Would it help to..."

"No, it wouldn't. It really wouldn't." And I had to close my eyes to blot out her expression and the worry in her eyes. She knew so little about me, and what she thought she knew was little more than a patchwork of lies. It was easy in that moment to hate Corvus Alviarus with all my heart, for what a bastard he was, how many lies he told and how he'd turned my life into a tangled mess, a cobweb fashioned by a shitfaced spider, all snarls and malformed spokes.

"I'm sorry." There was a catch in her voice, and I was filled with sudden fury at myself for how I was risking ruining the day.

On a sudden whim I brought her hand up to my lips and pressed my lips into the warm hollow of her palm. "Don't be," I said. "It's not your fault."

"I was the one who asked. If you think I pried–"

"You didn't pry at all. It's just..." _Just that I don't think I can bear keeping secrets from you_. That she called me by a name that was not my own I did not mind, since Jack was hardly my true name either, but every other lie I'd told felt a ton weight added to the burden I already carried on my back. An ache rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down, thinking that I was damned if I was going to start crying now, here in front of her. So instead I looked down at her hand, at her ring she wore with the Umbranox crest, and hated myself a little more for how my mind automatically priced up how much it might fetch from a fence. A little too recognisable really: I'd get nothing like its true value.

I took a breath. "It's just that your father really is going to kill me."

"You're wrong about him, you know," she said. "He's a very gentle man."

They say the luck of thieves is different from that of ordinary men.

Was it the wind that made me catch the noise above the gentle lapping of the water against the rocks below and the breeze in the trees? Instinct, perhaps, telling me I could hear something that didn't belong. Millona fell silent at my frown, at the twitch of my fingers telling her something was wrong. A damn thieves' signal, as if it would mean anything to her.

But in the silence it came again: the sound of a voice, someone hissing to another.

"What's wrong?" Millona murmured. If she was afraid, she was hiding it well.

 _There_. A flicker of movement, the dull gleam of metal on the hillside. I exhaled, my grip tightening on her hand. _Oh gods. Oh fucking gods._

Terror raced through me, mingling with the first knife edge of panic and searing fury. Easy to forget sometimes, when I was tucked away in the relative safety of towns and cities, wide wealthy avenues and shit-paved slums alike, that there was a reason why I'd always hated being in the fucking countryside.

"Corvus..."

"We're being watched. Try not to react. On the hillside. Off to the right." How I managed to speak, I'm not sure. My chest felt tight with terror. There were at least two of them. Possibly more.

"Bandits." Her voice was flat, almost unconcerned. She was hiding her fear better than I was. Somehow she was still smiling, even though her eyes were bright with fear, and I felt a sudden rush of warmth towards her.

 _Gods, you idiot_ , I thought, half dazed. _You really are falling in love with her._

"There's another one by the treeline," she continued, glancing around as if checking on the horses.

 _Shit. Shit. Shit. We're fucking dead._

Or at least, _I_ was fucking dead. Millona might have a chance if they were greedy enough to try ransoming her back to her father.

"You have to tell them who you are," I said, my voice low and urgent, leaning closer like a lover. It didn't help: this close I could feel that no matter how brave her voice and expression, she was trembling. "If you do, they might not hurt you."

"I doubt they're that stupid. Do you know what my father would do to them? They might be greedy enough to try to ransom me off, but they'd still almost certainly kill me. They couldn't risk returning me to him unharmed. He'd hunt them down without mercy."

"I knew I was right to be terrified of him," I muttered,

As the first of the bandits moved out from the rocks, we stood up, and I pressed Millona behind me. A sharp-faced Bosmer with an arrow nocked in his bow, and I knew from his glittering eyes that the arrow was ready to drive itself through my throat.

We had some advantages, meagre as they were. They'd likely be expecting a milksop noble who knew a little about fighting with a sword and nothing at all about fighting dirty, which meant they'd underestimate me. If I was fast enough and lucky enough, I might be able to hold my own against one or two of them (at least until they figured out what they were actually dealing with and then I'd be royally fucked), but not all three, and certainly not while trying to protect Millona at the same time.

How good was she at fighting with her dagger? I guessed I'd find out. Brutal ugly images of what they'd do to her flashed through my mind, and I shuddered, my fear beginning to edge towards panic.

"Morning, milord and lady," one of them called out. He was an Imperial, Nibenese by his accent and the sallow cast to his skin, scrawny and ragged as a scarecrow. "Fine day it is to go riding."

"A fine day indeed, sir," I called back, scanning them as I rested my hand on the hilt of my short sword. The bandit Millona had spotted watched from a distance. A woman, with a mace at her belt, but a tightening in my throat warned me that someone here was readying themselves to tap into their magicka reserves. Too much to hope it was Millona.

I leaned closer to her. "Millona, when I say so, run. I'll hold them off."

"They'll butcher you."

"Yeah, well, I'll guess we'll see just how good at fighting I really am. And none of them look as tough as that damn sheep."

Millona gripped my arm. "We _both_ run," she said, her voice low and urgent. "Down the slope. As fast as we can. I know somewhere where we can hide."

"Then you go there. I swore I'd protect you, remember?"

Her grip tightened on my arm. "Don't be an idiot, Corvus. Please, just trust me."

"'Trust you'." I fought the urge to close my eyes. "Yeah, okay. Shitting hell. I can do that. But you go first."

The bandits were advancing, trying to surround us. I glanced at them and forced a smile, wondering if it looked as weak and terrified as I felt.

"Gentlemen," I called. "I'm sure we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement here."

"Don't he speak nice?" the Bosmer said. "That's how my mother, gods rest her soul, used to speak."

"When she didn't have a cock in her mouth, I'll bet," the Imperial said, grinning. He winked at me, inviting us to share in the joke. "That's a fine offer, sirrah. but we've already got a very fine mutually beneficial arrangement, as you so finely call it, in mind." He scratched his neck. "For us, mind you. I doubt you'll find it quite so mutually beneficial. The terms, I wager, you'll find just the tiniest bit weighted in our favour. Course, the fair lady might find us more accommodating, if she's of a mind to be cooperative."

 _Touch her, and I'll rip your stomach out through your throat, you poxy cunt._

I kept silent; three against two with a bow trained on me and a possible mage weren't good enough odds for me to be spitting insults and threats at them. But my panic was beginning to turn into rage now. I hated bandits, and I was almost tempted to stay and fight, to play the milksop noble for just a little while longer, just long enough to put them off their guard.

Almost.

Instead, in one move we turned and skidded down the slope, Millona ahead of me. The Imperial yelled behind us, barked an order to the others. An arrow skimmed my head, missing by pure chance. I jerked away, and dug my feet into the slope to catch myself from falling.

The next arrow didn't miss. It felt like someone had punched me in the shoulder, shoving me forwards. I tumbled down the steep slope, grabbing at the grass as if it could stay my fall, and hit the water hard, with a starburst of agony in my shoulder as the arrowshaft protruding from my back struck the bottom and snapped, leaving the head lodged in my shoulder. Gasping, I scrabbled to my hands and knees, stared at the water, at the coils of red staining the water like ink. My vision tunnelled, my elbows threatening to buckle.

"Corvus." Millona dropped to her knees in the water beside me, trying to haul me to my feet. Her cheek pressed for a moment against mine, and her proximity was enough to snap me out of the daze. Enough for me to see the tears shining on her cheek, and think, _Fuck this._

"I'm not... dead... yet." I hauled myself to my feet. None of the bandits had appeared at the top of the hill yet. "You say you have somewhere to hide?"

She nodded, shot a glance upwards, then moved quickly along the water's edge, gathering her skirts up to stop them slowing her down. She ducked inside a narrow hollow in the rocks, beneath a craggy overhand that concealed it from view. I followed, wrenching my way through the weeds tangling around my legs, and leaned against the wet rock in the hollow, breathing through the pain. "It'll do for the moment," I said, staring out at the water. "But it won't take long for them to find us."

Millona grunted. "Help me with this."

"Help you with what?" The recess was deeper than I'd realised. Millona was a shadow at the back, splashing softly in the water as she set her back against the rock face. My eyes widened. "Shitting hell, there's a _door._ "

She glared at me, lips tight. "Oh, is that what this is? I did wonder."

"Sorry." I went to join her, and set my shoulder against the wood, gritting my teeth against the pain. Bands of rusted iron kept the door from warping too badly. It gave, shuddering inwards.

Inside the air was stale, filled with the stink of rot and decay. The cave was partly a natural formation, carved out by eras of water and the tides, and partly hewn by the hand of man. Ancient supplies, splintered crates and barrels, the evidence of long-dead smugglers, were rotting away on the rocky ledges, their contents long since spoiled.

Millona wedged the door shut, then turned to me. "Let me see your shoulder."

"I'm fine." Although I clearly wasn't fine. I had to lean against the rock to keep myself from fainting. "I'm fine, I just–" My legs crumpled, and she caught me, staggering under my weight and jarring the arrow in my shoulder. I mewled in agony, gave a choked-up sob and wrenched away.

I fell to my knees and she knelt in front of me, and pressed her forehead against mine. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Her breath was ragged, and she wiped her eyes. Tears or the water we were up to our ankles in: I couldn't tell which. "Corvus, listen to me–"

"No." I had to force the word out. "They're not going to stop looking for us. Can't... can't take the chance of us reporting them to the guard. You stay here and hide. I'll lead them off."

She cupped my cheeks. "You really would do it, wouldn't you? Sacrifice yourself in some idiotic act of suicide?"

"For you? In a heartbeat."

She kissed me. Brief, chaste, nothing more than a press of her lips to mine. "Good job you don't have to then," she whispered. "This is–"

Outside, someone splashed through the water. "There's a door here!"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Oh, fuck."

"Corvus–"

"There's no time, Millona. _Go_."

Her eyes narrowed. She gripped my wrist and dragged me across the cave to an opening in the rock. Another door was set deep in the hollow.

"The wood's waterlogged," Millona said, setting her shoulder to it. "But I think we should be able to–"

We were out of time. I drew my sword, and swung around as the first bandit, the Imperial, came through the door. He found me waiting.

I drove the blade at his neck, and he parried, sweeping my blade away with ease. With the clash of steel came an instant of jarring agony in my shoulder, enough to make my grip around the hilt loosen. He forced the attack, baring his teeth in triumph at my weak and increasingly desperate attempts to parry his blows, until he had me pressed against the rock with nowhere left to run. My sword arm ached, my left arm limp and useless. I hoped Millona was safe, and that if she managed to get the door open she'd have the good sense to flee.

"You know what we're going to do to her?" the bandit hissed.

"I don't... I don't know." I spat saliva onto the surface of the water, shook my head to get my hair out of my eyes. "But is it..." I trailed off, gasping at a wrenching stab of pain in my shoulder, the sword falling from nerveless fingers. " _Gods_."

He leaned forward, grinning. "Is it what?"

I gripped the collar of his shirt and jerked him closer. "Is it anything like _this_?"

I smashed my forehead into his face, felt the satisfying crunch of his nose shattering. He howled in pain and fury, and I bent, clawed up my sword from the ground and drove it upwards into his guts in one movement.

He staggered backwards, clutching at his belly in disbelief, then he came at me. His expression was one of startlement rather than fear or pain, and it made him look much younger, like a small child who'd shocked himself with the pain of scraping his knee. Beneath the dirt that caked his face, he was younger than me by at least a couple of years. Just a boy, clinging on to me like a frightened child who wanted his mother. I shoved him away, his hot blood on my hands, staining my ruined silks.

He fell against the wall and slid down, blood spilling over his hands as he fought to stop the ebb of the tide with his hands. "You stabbed me," he stammered. "You stabbed me."

"You're going to pay for that." The Bosmer was in the doorway, taking aim.

I darted out of his line of sight, and he muttered a curse under his breath. I flexed my grip around the hilt of my sword, but all my strength had fled. With any luck Millona had too, since I couldn't see her. The Imperial sobbed, begging me to help him. He babbled about how sorry he was, how sorry truly, they wouldn't really have hurt us, only robbed us, then let us go. He swore. He _swore_. But I am a liar and I know lies.

"Shut up," I muttered.

"Please." He clawed at my leg. "Please call for a healer. We'll let you go. We won't do nothing. I don't want to die. I don't want to–"

"I said 'shut up.'" He'd never see a healer, didn't have time. He'd bleed out here, his blood mingling with the salt water until until it had all washed away on the tide. I kicked him away, hot tears on my cheeks now, and called out to the Bosmer. "Your friend's still alive."

A moment's pause. A soft splashing in the water, no doubt the Bosmer trying to find a spot where he had a clear shot. Beside me the boy pawed at my leg, "Oh thank the gods, thank you, thank you, Divines bless you."

Then the Bosmer's reply. "So fucking what?"

"So you can help him. Get him healed. He'll die if he stays here. He's pretty badly hurt."

"He's probably dead anyway. And if he's not, won't be long before he will be."

"That's not..." I glanced down at the ragged wound in the Imperial's belly. He was fucked. "...Necessarily true."

A murmur of voices outside the doorway. I strained, but couldn't catch what they were saying. I felt the magic coming though, felt the fist unfurling in my gut, and Millona might be gone, but if she wasn't... "Millona!" I yelled. "Get down!"

The fireball surged through the doorway, struck the water and exploded, a wave of searing flames rippling out over the water. Scorching hot energy knocked me from my feet, slammed me against the rock. My jaw snapped closed on my tongue with an eye-watering crunch of flesh and gristle.

I swallowed a mouthful of brine, came up choking and coughing. The cave was so thick with smoke and steam I couldn't see, nothing but the stink of sulphur, and the tender sting of skin too close to flames. No sign of Millona.

I gasped out her name, my voice hoarse, then saw a flash of movement at the doorway. It was the Bosmer darting through, the bow trained on me. His eyes flicked to a body face down in the water, and for a second I could hardly breathe, gripped with terror that it was Millona, that she'd died and I'd failed to protect her like I'd promised. When I realised it was the Imperial bandit, I almost wept in relief.

My relief was short-lived. The Bosmer's eyes had narrowed and he was bringing up the bow, drawing it back. On my knees in the water, my hand closed around a rock. Strange sometimes, how things come full circle.

"Wait, please..." I begged. "Please don't."

He paused. Only for a moment, not to consider my pleas, but to let the moment drag out. It was the need to gloat that killed him.

The rock struck him square in the face. He recoiled, bellowing in fury. I scrambled up and slammed into him, knocking us both into the water. The bow twisted beneath me, and I flung it aside.

He clawed at my eyes, and I jerked my face to the side, caught his fingers between my teeth and bit down hard. The crunch of bone and flesh, his scream a wrenching mindless thing, his other hand slapping at my face. I pinned him down, but the twisting pain in my shoulder tore at me, and he was wiry and strong, bucking beneath me.

With every movement came a spasm of pain. I forced his face under the water, gripped his hair and wrenched. Bubbles surged from his mouth, popping at the surface. He twisted and writhed, scrabbled at me, his movements weakening–

Something snatched me up. A hand that gripped me in a fist of searing agony and tore me away from the world.

My body convulsed for a few snatched seconds that felt like hours. A sound torn its way from my chest. My bladder knotted then unfurled as I pissed myself. I was left me weeping and sobbing in the water, my body limp and useless as a rag doll.

The female bandit stepped through the entrance to the cave, lightning cupped in her hands. She was breathing hard, rage burning in her eyes.

"You're a dead man," she said.

My tongue, fat and useless, refused to form words. I tried to lift my hand to stay her, to beg, if not for my own life, then for Millona's, but it took all my strength to keep my face from sinking beneath the surface of the water.

She raised her hand, the toy lightning wreathing her studded bracers. Tears filled her eyes, and I wanted absurdly to laugh, but I couldn't even manage that. I could do nothing but close my eyes and wait for the bolt to hit me and stop my knackered heart from beating. I was done.

She froze. Puzzled, she stared down at herself, at the arrow sprouting from her chest. And then she looked at me, as if she was trying to work out how I could have managed such a thing. And then at Millona, soaked to the skin and reaching down to draw another arrow from the Bosmer's quiver.

The magic writhing up the bandit's arm fizzled out, and she crumpled, falling face first in the water. The rippling wave crashed over me and I sank, a vast wall of darkness surging up to meet me. The world was made of ravens, and I closed my eyes, ready to let them bear me away.

" _Corvus_."

The voice seemed so distant. So far away. Even now I'm still not certain it was Millona speaking.

I inhaled, filling my mouth and lungs with water. I was ready to let myself slide down into the embrace of the darkness. Just had to close my eyes and sleep for a little while.

 _Yeah,_ I thought. _Fuck that._

And I surged up, coughing and spluttering.

"Are you all right?" Millona cupped my cheeks. "Mara's mercy, Corvus, I've never seen anything like that."

"I'm used..." I said, between gasps for breath, "...to having... the shit... kicked out of me..."

"I can see that. Do you think you can stand?"

We tried. I didn't want to put too much of my weight on her, but I had little choice. I'd never make it back up the slope.

"You could ride back to Anvil," I said. "Hopefully they haven't killed the horses..."

She blanched. "They wouldn't do that, would they? Not when they could sell them on..."

"The horses from the castle would be too recognisable. Every stable in Colovia's going to be on the lookout for them. But no, they probably didn't. Too busy trying to kill _us_." I shoved myself away from the rock and kicked the Bosmer's side, the effort enough to make me feel dizzy again. I leaned against the rock until it had passed. When I looked up, Millona was staring down at the corpse, her face pale. I swallowed, afraid that when she turned her face to mine her eyes would be filled with fear, like I was a stranger, someone she should be afraid of. "Do you think you could make it there on your own?"

She gave herself a shake. "I don't _need_ to, Corvus. That's what I was trying to say earlier..."

"Before we were so rudely interrupted?"

An all-too-brief flash of a smile, which vanished too quickly. "If we follow the cave through, there's a secret passage into Castle Anvil, but–"

I stared at her. "Are you serious?"

She nodded. "I thought perhaps I could force the door, but I wasn't strong enough. Corvus, I don't suppose..." She hesitated, shivering, and peeled her sodden skirts away from her legs. "I don't suppose you'd know how to go about picking a lock?"

I stared at her, then began to laugh.

~o~O~o~

The lock itself was surprisingly well-maintained, and the door kept oiled and regularly treated to keep it protected from the incursion of water. If Millona was surprised at just how good I was at picking locks, she didn't show it. I muttered something about beginner's luck, and she studied me with a strangely thoughtful expression.

Beyond there was darkness. A lingering scent of rot and decay. My shoulder throbbed, and I breathed shallowly, resting my hand against the damp stone for balance. It was so dark I could barely see Millona, but I could feel her, our hands clasped tightly as if we never wanted to let each other go. She seemed to know the way instinctively; her movements were careful, but it seemed like that was for my benefit. I was slowing her down, and not only because of my injury.

The walls were pressing in. Literally. There were narrow spots where the rock closed in so tightly there was barely room to squeeze through. Millona could slip through easily, but with my additional bulk, and close to panic as I was, I was certain I'd get stuck fast. It took Millona's gentle coaxing, and the potential shame of embarrassing myself in front of her, for me to master my breathing and wriggle through.

In the end it was so easy I felt like a fool, and thankful for how the darkness hid my burning cheeks.

The narrow tunnel opened out onto a large cavern, the far reaches swallowed up by inky darkness, broken only by a couple of streams of weak light filtering through the rocky ceiling. Millona knelt by a chest I'd stumbled past, so again I was certain she knew this place well, that she'd been here many times before. "There should be a torch," she said, fumbling about in the chest. "And a firelighter."

I turned, and squinted into the gloom, towards what little light there was, shining on rock formations and a wooden structure that seemed man-made, but long ago, left to rot. I moved forwards to the edge of the ledge we stood upon. It plunged downwards, a sheer drop, and in the depths of the cavern below I could hear water lapping at the rock, could see it rippling of it in the few places touched by the hazy streams of light.

Below, in one of those shafts of light, I saw movement. A shift in the sound of water, as if something were wading through it.

The ground beneath my feet suddenly felt much more uneven. I backed away.

"Ah. There you are," Millona murmured to herself.

 _Something's here._

I opened my mouth to call her, but kept silent. A creeping sensation itched down the back of my spine. The noise was barely audible beneath the constant sound of dripping water. Quiet enough that I could have imagined it. It was a creaking sound, like old bones, which set my teeth on edge. For a moment I was that boy again – that stupid, ignorant, frightened child, certain he was going to die in a cave very much like this one. No smell of rot, thank the gods, only the mineral sharpness to the air: salt and wet stone and something underlying it, a musty, mouldering smell.

The noise came again. Behind me now, near where Millona knelt by the ancient chest. She had found the firelighter, and as I turned to warn her, the sparks of light caught on polished bone, glinted on a dull metal blade, and a fist of terror strangled me so tightly I couldn't speak.

She cursed as the darkness flooded back in. "The whole cavern must have flooded in the storms," she called to me, and I flinched, wanting to beg her to keep her voice down, to keep quiet, but my throat was still closed. Another creak of bones. A scuffling footstep. And Millona was kneeling there helpless, unaware of what was coming. A sob rose in my throat. I took a step back, knowing I needed to protect her, and knowing I couldn't. The bandits were one thing, but this... a dead thing. I _couldn't._

I couldn't even bring myself to warn her. Terror kept me frozen in place. Or I could run, I thought. I could still turn my back and flee.

 _Oh gods_ , I thought. _You coward. You godsdamned coward._

And then the spark caught, and the torch blazed into life. The skeleton was illuminated in the sudden light, a few scraps of cloth still clinging to its bones. And perched horribly, incongruously, upon the dome of its skull, was a tri-cornered hat. Its eye sockets were empty and yet a feeling of malice radiated from within them, a tightly packed simmering rage. It flinched back from the light, but only for a moment... then lurched out, the blade of its cutlass scraping across the rock, the scatterspray of sparks illuminating bony fingers clutched around the hilt. It moved towards Millona, who was pushing herself to her feet with a smile of triumph.

That broke the spell. I drew my sword, rushed forward.

"Corvus, no!" Millona caught me. With one arm around my chest, she held me back, while the skeleton took a few tottering steps towards us and stopped, cutlass pointing towards the ground.

"It's all right," she told me, her voice soothing.

"All right? It's a _fucking skeleton!_ "

"It won't hurt you. None of them will."

"'None of them?'" I stared at the skeleton, which seemed, despite its lack of eye sockets, to stare right back. And even though this one was motionless now, I could still hear that creaking sound, and splashing in the water below. I shuddered, pressed my hand over the back of my mouth, fighting nausea. "You mean there's more?"

Millona shifted her grip on the torch, her face illuminated by the fire. "I'm sorry. I should have warned you."

"You knew they were here," I said, in disbelief. "All along."

She nodded. "They're usually much quieter than this. I thought we might get through without seeing any of them. Maybe the... the fight roused them." Her hand rested gently on my wrist. "Corvus, please put your sword away. I promise you're completely safe. You said you'd trust me, remember?"

I swallowed, glancing back at the nearest skeleton. "What in Oblivion are they?"

And in reply, she held out her hand. "Come on. I'll show you."

~o~O~o~

The light of the torch revealed the rotting remains of a ship, which had been crushed in two by a falling rock. A crow's nest jutted from the water like a gibbet, thankfully empty of his long-dead previous occupant, although I would have felt happier if that previous occupant hadn't still been walking around.

People had lived here. The wrecked ship had been scavenged and repurposed, barnacle-scarred boards refashioned into bridges that crossed between the islands of rock, and the stern of the ship had been hauled up to act as living quarters.

And everywhere were skeletons. Millona held the torch aloft as she moved amongst them, utterly unconcerned. A few times when she glanced back at me, I could have sworn she was smiling, as if this was something she was excited to share with me.

"How many of them are there?" I asked.

"Almost twenty. Eighteen men and the pirate lord Captain Dugal himself. There's a freshwater spring somewhere at the back, so they had water, and enough supplies to keep them alive, supplemented by whatever they could catch. There's a cave at the back littered with rat and fish bones."

I shuddered.

"Illness took them in the end, but it was twenty-six years before the last of them died."

"Twenty-six years." Aghast, I stared at the closest skeleton, and for the first time my revulsion began to slip away, replaced by pity. "They were trapped here for all that time?"

"I think Fasil Umbranox thought it a kindness at the time. He was a resolute man and determined to bring the Black Flag down, but he wasn't cruel."

"Funny sort of kindness."

"They were different times, Corvus. Darker times. After the sailors were dead, one of his sons, Petrov Umbranox, came looking." A twitch of her lips. She was enjoying this. "Searching, I suspect, for any remaining treasure that might have been on the ship. He was never quite as fiscally cautious as his father. He found a way inside, found the sailors all dead. No treasure, unfortunately, but he did find the captain's journal, where he placed a curse on Fasil Umbranox's descendants. If it hadn't been for that, Petrov Umbranox might have had the bodies carried out and given a decent burial, but as it was..." She paused, glancing at the nearest skeleton. "He had a passage built from the castle to serve as an escape route in times of strife and set them all to serve his descendents in death."

"How does this not creep the shit out of you"

"I used to come here with my brother." Her voice softened. "We'd play hide and seek, down on the ship. Pretend that the skeletons really were trying to attack us and sneak around avoiding them. I'm used to it."

"Millona, you really are..." I hesitated. That particular sentence was not one I had the guts to complete, so instead I said, "So you have your own private army of skeletons?"

She considered this, then gave a soft laugh. "You know, I've never thought about it that way, but, yes, I suppose I do."

"Well, that's..." I stared at the skeleton nearest to her. The hollow-eyed skull swivelled towards me. "...That's _capital_."

Feeling light-headed, I leaned against the rock, fighting the urge to laugh. Millona's wry smile changed to a look of sudden concern. "Oh, Corvus, I'm so sorry. Here I am yattering on about my family's tedious history–"

"Tedious? I'm not sure any history that involves pirates and necromancy can be described as tedious."

"–But you need a healer. We need to get back."

She took my hand in hers, and it was impossible to resist the urge to squeeze her fingers lightly as she led me through the cavern, along rotting bridges and past stalagmites that dwarfed us both, to another door.

"Do you need me to pick it again?" I asked.

"Not this one. I have the key."

"Out of interest, where does the passage end up?"

For a moment, she was silent. "One of the private rooms in the castle," she said. "It's... not used much." Her cheeks had coloured pink. Lying never was one of her talents.

"Millona..."

"Does it really matter?"

"At this time of day? When everyone might just be starting to wonder what's happened to you? Of course it matters."

"Corvus–"

"I know guards. Some of them have a tendency to jump to conclusions and a disinclination to listen to reason or explanations."

"They'll listen to me." There was a note of steel in her voice, but her flush was deepening. She shot another glance at the door, and her mouth tightened guiltily.

"Where does the passage end up, Millona?"

For a long moment, I thought she was going to continue to argue, then she sighed. "My father's bedroom."

"Oh _gods_."

"I'm the one he's going to be angry with, Corvus, not you. I'm the one who lied about coming to meet you."

"You can't seriously believe that. You're his daughter. I'm a... I'm a nobody. Who do you think he's going to blame?"

She swallowed. "When he hears you saved my life–"

"After what? Accidentally running into you in the countryside? Bit of a coincidence, that."

"It's not so very far fetched."

"No," I agreed. "At least, so long as your father has less of the wit of a dried out splatter of birdshit, he'll be bound to fall for it."

He eyes lingered on me, dark and sad.

I sighed. What choice did I really have? I could try to make it up the slope, but even the thought of that made me feel faint with dread at how much it would hurt. "I'm sorry," I said. "I've just had my fill of having the crap beaten out of me today. And I'd rather avoid a spell in the castle dungeon if at all possible."

"It won't come to that, I swear it. Don't you trust me?"

 _Oh fucking hell. That's hardly fair_. "Of course I do. But..."

"Then have a little faith in me, and my father. However we came to meet, you did save my life. He'll be overcome with gratitude."

He'd be overcome with something, I thought, but I rather suspected gratitude wouldn't be it. Incoherent fury would have been my guess, but it wasn't like I had much of a choice.

~o~O~o~

Her father's rooms were quietly understated, befitting a naval man, but everything I saw, the furnishings, the subtle turnings of the bed frame, spoke so quietly and insistently of wealth they made my hands itch. Thankfully, the room was empty, and for all her reassurances, Millona looked relieved as she pulled me towards the door.

"Come on," she said. "If we're quick, we can–"

She stopped dead as the door opened. Lucar Umbranox, stood in the doorway, his expression shifting from startled to grim to exactly the kind of murderous fury I would have expected him to wear at the sight of his daughter with her arms around a man of dubious reputation and parentage, and both of us in a state of some considerable disarray.

The bandits were one thing. They were ill-trained and underfed, idiots who'd accidentally fallen into the murder game through a cast of fate. This man, on the other hand, had been trained to kill almost since birth, and the might of the empire and the entirety of the Anvil Watch stood stalwart behind him. One word from him and every guard in the city would hack me down, giving no quarter. And he'd do it too, I could see that in his eyes, no matter how much Millona claimed otherwise. She had only ever seen one side of her father, and I saw quite another. I was a dead man.

So I did the only thing I could.

I fainted.

~o~O~o~

Even discounting the many, many times I've had the shit kicked out of me, I was used to waking up in some degree of pain. It's not an easy life, the life of a thief. Too many narrow escapes over rooftops made treacherous by an unexpected burst of rain. Or huddling against the wall three floors up, praying that the suspicious houseowner peering out of the window will see nothing more than shadows.

This time when I woke there was nothing but a strange silvery tingling, the result, I suspect, of one of the most powerful healing spells money and power could buy. It felt like the aftermath of a spectacular orgasm, and it was blissful. I could quite willingly have burrowed down into the bedclothes and slept for a week.

Someone knocked at the door. A soft delicate little tap that made another involuntary grin spread across my face. Perhaps I could be forgiven that my first thought was of Millona, since I'd spent most of that lazy blissful morning playing back the moment when she had kissed me – that brief press of closed lips, which had been chaste and innocent and all the more arousing despite that. It's fair to say she was on my mind.

And perhaps, I was thinking, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if I tried to have another crack at that kiss, and this time making it just a little bit less chaste and innocent. She was powerful enough and wealthy enough that a slight stain on her virtue would only serve to make her more interesting. And me… well, it might necessitate a speedy exit from Anvil once her father found out (and that was inevitable), but it would be worth it.

 _Godsdamn_ , would it be worth it.

"A moment," I called out and scrambled rapidly from the bed to throw on some clothes and rake my fingers through my hair. The shirt I left artfully unlaced, and arranged to look careless and insouciant. I spent rather too long making sure it appeared that way. Some have called me vain in my youth. There's a slender chance they might have been right.

Anyway, it was a waste of bloody time. It wasn't Millona at the door but Lord Umbranox's steward, grinning at me as if he knew exactly the thoughts swirling through my overheated brain.

"What the–" I swallowed, and pressed myself against the door. It wasn't just my brain that was overheated. Entirely the fault of the Restoration magic, I assure you. "What do you want?"

"His Lordship's sent for you. Summat you ought to see."

~o~O~o~

Even despite the steward's gaze burning into my back, in the Great Gall, I found myself smiling at the sound of Millona's laughter rising up to greet me. It was laced with joy and pleasure, and seemed to match my own at the thought of seeing her again.

But when is anything ever that simple?

As I began to descend, I heard another voice, a familiar voice with the drawling accent of Kvatch – Marus Goldwine, linked arm in arm with Millona and regaling her with some story about how he'd fought with his uncle again, and so had come to beg refuge from the only city in Cyrodiil worth a damn after Kvatch. She laughed again, and gazed up towards him with warmth in her eyes. What she murmured I didn't catch, but I saw how he reached over and brushed an imaginary lock of hair from her face. My hands tightened on the banister, while the steward whistled a tuneless snatch of an old Colovian melody. I glared at him and he winked back. Or… maybe he just blinked. Hard to tell.

Millona and Marus. They'd known each other a long time, these two. Since they were children. Marus had been fostered in Anvil, sent to learn the ways of court life, the ins and outs of nobility from a family with children. Anvil was the obvious choice. He had been of an age with Millona's brother, and Millona herself... Well, she had been the younger child back then. The one who would be married off.

They'd been intended for each other, right from the start. They were meant.

And I might still have been about to laugh it off despite the wrenching pain in my chest at the sight of them together, at how casually he claimed ownership of her by touching her cheek, if it hadn't been for Millona catching sight of me on the staircase.

Her lips parted as if she was about to call my name, but instead she caught herself and stayed silent. Her eyes held mine for a brief moments, and then she turned her back on me, the movement deliberate, her message clear.

Better if I was not seen.

Well, naturally: my presence here would be hard to explain to Marus after all. I got it, I understood, even if it did make my heart feel like a slab of broken flagstone suspended in my chest.

I backed away, moving out of sight into the corner of the landing. The steward bared his teeth at me and clapped me on the shoulder. "Hard luck, lad," he said, and I had to wrestle down the urge to punch him.

What the fuck did I think I was doing here, anyway?

There was no opportunity waiting for me in Anvil. There never had been. No wonder the steward was laughing at me, chasing around like a fool after a woman I could never have, and without a care for my fragile heart. Better for everyone if I just turned my back and walked away. It would hurt less in the long run.

Because she'd marry Marus, just like the rumours said she would. Because they'd known each other since they were children, and she was fond of him, and they made sense together in a way that she and I never would.

A pity really. I'd rather liked being Corvus.

Even if he was nothing but a lie.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: As always, thank you to tafferling for betaing. All comments are appreciated, including constructive criticism. Thanks for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-One**

" _Tenet 2: Never betray the Dark Brotherhood or its secrets. To do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis._ "

– _The Five Tenets_

I'd like to be able to say that over the course of the summer and winter that followed my leaving Anvil, I finally grew up, took stock of my life and realised that if I didn't change my ways I'd carry on spiralling ever downwards. So naturally, I pulled myself together, paid off whatever debts I might owe, and got a proper job. Something respectable.

Yeah. Right.

A nice thought. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way. One thing I always could count on was my ability to underestimate just how talented I was at fucking myself over. I seemed to have a knack for it. I didn't even have to _try_.

And it was this ability to fuck myself over that saw me, one evening in late Sun's Dawn, scrambling down the banks of Lake Rumare, praying I'd find the chest I knew was hidden there before the Imperial guard on my trail found _me_. What can I say? It's a gift.

The water was freezing, and the chest had been sunk into the rock at the bottom of the lake, deep enough that I had to submerge myself to pick the lock. As the urge to take a breath intensified, my fingers twinged and my hand spasmed hard enough to snap the pick.

I resurfaced to gulp down a couple of lungfuls of air and indulge in a spot of cursing, then dove again. This time the tumblers snapped into place moments before my air ran out, and I grabbed the glass bottle within, and dragged my shivering carcass back onto the shore.

I uncapped the bottle and knocked back the bitter liquid inside. Spent the next two minute wishing I was an Argonian, the next two minutes after that that I'd never been stupid enough to get into this mess in the first place, and countless minutes after that screaming in unmitigated agony.

Turns out growing gills hurts. And that's coming from someone who's suffered a lot of pain in his life. The splitting and reforming of the flesh and bones in the neck was eye-watering. It felt like my nerves had been flayed, doused in lemon juice and then sandpapered down with a sprinkling of salt for good measure. It left me rolling around on the bank in weeping agony, a hand clamped over my mouth to silence my screams, not entirely successfully.

As the pain ebbed to the point that I could see again, I lay on my back and glared at the sky, keeping my breathing as even as I could.

"You could have warned me," I muttered. The stars blurred, merged together, then broke apart into fragments of glittering light. "You could have sodding warned me."

I rolled to my feet unsteadily and felt at my neck with a shaking hand. The gash in my throat sucked hungrily at my fingers, and I shuddered .Took a few staggering breaths towards the lake, dragging the air into my lungs, ready to plunge beneath the surface and–

"Stop right there," a voice roared out, accompanied by the clank of legion armour.

 _Shit shit shit._ Perfect fucking timing, and no surprise the way my luck had been going lately. Since I was now pretty much broke I didn't have enough money to pay the fine. So it'd mean resisting arrest and inevitably dying, or serving out my time, which would be at least a year. Probably two. Those two options could both go fuck themselves.

I lunged into the water. There was a moment of resistance, a what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing-to-us from my confused lungs as they flooded with water, and then my brain began to register that, contrary to all expectations, I was getting air. It felt like a miracle, all my boyhood fantasies (the ones from before I hit puberty anyway) come true.

Pity that this wasn't Morrowind, where levitation potions were still legal and not subject to ruthless crackdowns by the Mages' Guild, since all I needed now was to experience flying. Oh, and marry the woman of my dreams and live happily ever after, but clearly that was never going to happen.

 _Shit, Jack. Let it fucking go._

I swam deeper through the murk towards the rusting sewer gate. I set my bare feet against the rock and dragged it open, bubbles escaping from my mouth. And then I stared into the darkness, caught in the grip of a sudden terror that the tunnel would shrink as I swam along it and I'd be trapped like a constipated turd. Or that maybe there'd be some monstrous thing lying in wait. A were-crocodile, perhaps, or something half-dead and decayed and–

 _Fucksake_. The Argonians used this route all the time. There was nothing dead down there, but if I didn't get a move on the potion would wear off, and then maybe there would be.

No choice.

The sides of the tunnel were slick with algae, and no matter how tightly closed I kept my lips a sour muddy flavour hit the back of my throat. I dragged myself along the tunnel, fighting the conviction that the gashes in my throat were starting to close up, that the potion was wearing off. My chest hitched, and I took a gulp of the foul water, instantly gagged.

The passage took an upwards turn so sharp I had to twist my spine like a ferret to haul myself up, shuddering in revulsion as debris in the water struck my cheeks. I turned my face away, and almost missed the turning for the bathhouse, forcing me to perform an awkward u-turn, my back scraping painfully against the jagged rock. Beneath my hands, the roughly hewn rock grew smooth beneath the gunge, as rock became carved stonework. I was getting close.

But my neck stung, prickling like a scabbing wound. Oh gods, oh gods, it was wearing off. And I was getting less air with every passing moment as rising panic flooded me. My movements sped up, until I was blindly flailing, dragging myself to the hatch.

On instinct, I flung my head upwards to find the surface, to find air, and the top of my skull cracked against the stone.

I took out my last pick, fingers stiff and uncooperative, because what the fuck was I doing trying to pick a lock when I was about to drown any moment? When I should be kicking back along the tunnel, scrambling for the surface before it was too late?

In my panic, I wrenched the pick a little too hard, caught myself in the instant before it snapped.

The prickprickprick of tiny bubbles popped on the edges of the gashes in my throat. My heart beat double-time, a rhythmic tattoo of _you'redeadyou'redeadyou'redead_ , as I gripped the pick again. I thought of Millona, imagined her here with me, counting on me to pick this lock before we both drowned.

And then it was easy. Sort of. A gentle nudge of the pick, and the tumbler clicked into place. Relief surged like a tide, but it was short-lived. No question I was short of air now, and my neck was agony again. Not quite drowning, not yet, but I wasn't far off. I gripped the handle of the hatch and pushed, grinning wildly, because I was there, almost there, so close to being able to breathe like a normal human again. The hatch creaked, cracked open an inch–

–And stuck fast.

 _Fuuuuuck. Fucknoshitno._ I jerked in terror, set my shoulders against the hatch, braced my feet against the rock, and pushed with all my strength. My vision shrank to a pinprick, red agony pulsing in my skull, and then the hatch cracked upwards, and I was surging up, legs kicking wildly, propelling myself into the warmer clearer water–

The top of my skull slammed into the metal bars of the cage, so hard I went dizzy for a few seconds before panic took over again. And there was still no air. I pressed my face against the bars, but the cage was wholly submerged and the lock could not be picked – even Sam Bantien couldn't have done it. And oh gods, I was fucked, because the potion really had worn off now and I was drowning.

A long few moments of screaming flailing panic, and then peace settled over me like a warm enveloping blanket. Millona's lips, still gentle but no longer quite so chaste, pressed against mine, and she said my name, even though she was still kissing me. As I drifted down into the darkness, I wondered idly when she'd started calling me Jack.

A metallic clang. A fist seized my shirt, and dragged me from the cage. Rough scaled hands slapped my cheek.

I choked, coughed up a couple of lungfuls of filthy water. Took a gasping choking breath and then another, flailing on the floor like a newborn calf. "...Took you long enough..." I wheezed.

Sakeepa grinned down at me. "Ah, you'll live."

I sat up, coughed again, and gagged at the awful taste in my mouth. "Gods, that's foul. I'm never doing that again."

Sakeepa reached down and pulled me up. "Don't fuck up a job so royally in the future and you won't have to."

"Talking like it was my fault." I touched a hand to my neck, feeling the ridged scabs of freshly healed tissue there. They stung at my touch, but would heal soon enough. "Sam around?"

"You're lucky. He's holding court."

I couldn't face Sam straight away. My nerves were too ragged. Instead I let Swims-Under-Moonlight oil me up while my terror eased away into the warmth of the room along with the knots in my muscles.

At least an hour passed before I went to find Sam. He was with Armande, who looked up, and gave me a nod and a commiserating smile. Sam didn't give me so much as a glance.

"You fucked up, Jack."

"Wasn't me," I said, sinking down on the bench. "It was that idiot I did the job with with. He fucked up. He panicked. If he'd just–"

"He panicked. You fucked up. And now Danic's in jail, a guard's been injured and the whole of the fucking legion is baying for your blood."

"He should have known better than to resist arrest. If he'd only–"

"You fucked up, Jack."

My cheeks burned. Armande had dropped his gaze and his smile and was staring at the swirling water in the shallow footbath. I opened my mouth to argue further, then looked away. "Yeah," I said, and kicked the side of the bench in sudden impotent fury. "I fucked up. Shit." I rubbed my face with my hands. "Can you at least sort my bounty?"

"Have you got the money? 'Cause we're talking almost six hundred Septims and the word is you're not so solvent these days."

"I can get the money. I just need a couple days to get my shit together–"

Sam gave an exasperated puff of air. "Do I look like a fucking bank? I don't offer lines of credit."

"You know I'm good for it–"

"Do I though? Because I'm not so sure. You ask me, it seems like your heart's not been in it these days. Like you left it behind in Anv–"

"Sam." My voice snapped out, and he fell silent. "Just... just give me a couple of days. It's all I'm asking."

"I'll cover his bounty," Armande said. I lifted my gaze to him, wanted to protest, but the words caught in my throat. Armande held up his hands as I started towards him. "Just don't hug me, you oily bastard."

"Fair enough." I sank back down, smile slipping as I looked back at Sam. "The guard... will he..."

"He'll live, but he was damned lucky. It was a bloody stupid thing you did."

"It was an accident. He was going to hack Danic down. I acted on instinct. And he would have been fine if he hadn't slipped. My damn luck these days."

"Or your heart."

"It's nothing to do with my fucking heart. I'm as good a thief as I ever was. It's my luck."

"A thief with any damn sense wouldn't have partnered with Danic on a job like this in the first place. He was too green and you know it."

I kept silent, chewing bitterly on my lower lip.

And still Sam wouldn't let it go. "You were reckless and stupid."

"So," I snapped, "no fucking change there then."

"Jack–"

I pushed myself up, and turned to Armande. "I'll pay you back, Armande. I will."

"I know." As I moved out into the corridor, he followed me and took hold of my arm. "But take your time. I'm in no hurry. I'm doing all right."

I gritted my teeth, took a few steps, then gave up on stoicism and swung towards him, bursting out, "We should've been fine. That job, there was no reason why it should have turned bad. None."

"Just bad luck?"

"Yeah." I kicked the walls. "And my heart is in it."

"Jack." His voice was weary, filled with a don't-bullshit-me tone. "Come on. We both know where your heart is. You've not been the same since you came back from the coast. Even after all that business with Varian you weren't as bad as this."

"All that _business_?"

He grimaced, shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah." I slumped against the wall. "Well, you've said it yourself plenty of times. I'm a moony bastard when it comes to women."

"No, you're a moony bastard when it comes to Millona Umbranox. You can be a love-blind fool when you're in the mood, but it's never been as bad as this." He hesitated. "You ever think maybe you should go back?"

"Go back? To Anvil? Are you fucking serious?" My voice hardened. "You spent half your time trying to get me to come back to the City, and now you think I should have stuck in Anvil? Make up your damn mind."

"I warned you away from Anvil because I was worried you'd get hurt. Did you–"

"–Fuck her? That's none of your–"

"–Tell her you're in love with her." He gripped my arm, and shook me a little, trying, I think, to get me to calm down and see sense.

I wrenched away, held up my hands until my blind rage had eased. "I'm not in love with her," I said, once I had myself under control. "That's fucking ridiculous."

Armande didn't bother to answer, which made sense since I hadn't even tried to make the lie believable.

I tried again. "Even if I am, I'll get over it. Eventually. I should have listened to you. I should never have stayed in Anvil. It was a bad idea."

"But you never have been able to say no to a woman."

"Now that's a damn slander." I thumped my shoulder into his and he slung his arm around my back. It was about as close to an apology as we were ever likely to get. "I've never been able to say no to _anyone_."

~o~O~o~

They were right: my heart wasn't in it. I played it safe for a while after that, a series of small petty jobs, safe and reliable and too tedious for words, and at every turn I longed to be elsewhere, somewhere quieter. I was sick of the Rat, bored even of the bath houses, tired of the sweat and heat and noise of the city. Spring had always been my favourite time of the year, but the city now seemed as stifling as Bravil in high summer. So when the Fox returned I was ready for her, and desperate for anything she might have to offer me.

"I need your help," she said, and I sprang out of bed, eager as a bored puppy leaping at the heels of the master who had abandoned it.

"Is it a job?"

"Might be. It's not exactly Thieves' Guild business though. Still sure you're interested?"

"Fuck it, why not?"

She laughed, and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "I thought you were done with me."

"Please. I could never be done with you. You're my guildmaster, remember? What are we doing? Where are we going? What are we stealing?"

"We're not stealing anything. Not this time. You're going to help me guard something."

"Well, that sounds boring as fuck." And still I pulled my shirt on over my head, and buckled my sword-belt.

"Let's pray you're right and it does turn out to be fuck-boring. Never pray for an interesting life, Jack. Boring's good–"

"Boring makes me want to gouge my eyes out with rusty nails."

She leaned against the door frame, studying me. "And yet Sam tells me you long for Anvil."

"Sam talks too much. And Anvil isn't boring, it's peaceful. There's a difference."

"Especially when you're in love." There was something hard about her eyes, not especially friendly. "I really didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come back."

"Whatever you say." The Fox was the last person I wanted to talk to about my love life, with that mocking look in her eyes, and the cowl lending everything a sinister veneer. "What are we guarding?"

"It's not what, but whom."

"Anything I should know?" I asked. "Like is this personal business or the other?"

"What other?"

I caught hold of her arm. "You know what other. You think I've forgotten what happened in Kvatch? When the Dark Brotherhood nearly killed you and your friend?"

"Ah, yes, my friend. I hear she's not too fond of me, but the two of you got very close."

"Don't change the subject. Is this to do with the Brotherhood?"

She tilted her head. "If I said it was, would it change anything?"

I kept silent.

"Then yes, it's to do with the Brotherhood," she said. "And if you don't want to get involved, tell me and I'll leave you alone. If it's too much for you."

In other words, if I was a coward.

I grinned. "Fuck that. I just wanted to know, that's all."

~o~O~o~

The whom turned out to be an Altmer, waiting for us in the upstairs room of an inn on the road to Bravil, and on seeing her I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding, because I'd been expecting a monster, not a frightened elf. She clung to the door, unwilling to open it fully and let us in. "I didn't think you'd come," she said.

"I almost didn't," the Fox said.

"And you brought a bodyguard, I see," the Altmer said, her gaze flicking to me. "Not much of one though. He's just a boy."

I prickled at that. "I'm not a boy. And I'm tougher than I look."

The Fox's hand tightened in warning on my arm. Her meaning was clear: _What part of 'shut up and let me do the talking' is difficult to understand?_ I snapped my mouth shut and glowered at the pair of them.

The Fox placed her hand against the door and pushed it. The Altmer's jaw tightened, but she stepped away reluctantly, allowing us inside. There was something familiar about her face. I'd seen her before somewhere, I was sure of it.

"He's here to guard you, not me," the Fox said, jerking her head towards the door to indicate I should close it.

The Altmer paled a little at that, but tried to hide it. "To protect me or keep me prisoner?"

The Fox shrugged. "Whichever he judges most needs doing."

I glanced at her, and the look in her eyes beneath the cowl was enough to keep me quiet.

"He looks like a strong breeze would blow him over," the Altmer said, studying me.

"That's his secret. Everyone underestimates him–"

"Thank you," I said, but the Fox wasn't done.

"–And every once in a while he proves them wrong."

"Hey!"

A smile ghosted across the Altmer's face, but it quickly faded. "I want out. This life, I can't do it anymore."

"You're not the only one who's felt that way."

"It's true, then? You know a way out? A way to stop them from coming after me?"

"I'm alive, aren't I?" the Fox said, and hope glittered in the Altmer's eyes. "I can show you. But I need to know where I can find him. If you know..."

"I do, but... what you're asking..." She glanced around the room, fear on her face. And suddenly I knew where I had seen her before.

"Bravil!"

They stared at me, startled by my sudden exclamation. I cleared my throat, embarrassed. "Just... I thought you looked familiar. You used to live in Bravil. You, um..." I cleared my throat, remembering. _You butchered a crooked bastard of a guard who beat the shit out of me more than a couple of times. Fun times._

"Of course," she said, staring at me. "The little beggar boy who used to spy on us."

Heat rose to my cheeks. "I wasn't _spying_ –"

"Well, far be it for me to interrupt this delightful reunion," the Fox snapped, "but this hardly seems the time." She turned to the Altmer. "Tell me where. _Now_. Or the deal's off."

"You swear you'll help me?"

"I swear. On Nocturnal. On Sithis. On the Nine. On anything and anyone you want, just fucking tell me."

The Altmer exhaled, closed her eyes and nodded. There was defeat in the gesture and in her voice when she spoke. "Leyawiin. He has a contract there. A special one. A... a slow one. He'll take his time. Enjoy it. You should be able to catch him if you leave now." She spoke in a rush, as if once she'd started she couldn't stop, and then she hunkered down on the bed, her hands pressed against her mouth as if she longed to force the words back in. Make it as if she'd never spoken.

The Fox nodded. "Good. _Good_."

"Do you mean to..."

"Only to talk to him. We have some unfinished business, he and I."

On her way out, she glanced at me. "Jack, a word." And when I followed her out, she drew me aside. "Do whatever you can to stop her leaving. And if anything turns up–"

"Protect her. Got it."

"No." She was as patient as if speaking to a child. "I don't want you to do a damned thing."

"I don't get you."

"I mean," she said, "if someone or something turns up to kill her, I want you to let them. Sheathe your sword. Step back. Open the fucking door for them if necessary and usher them in. Offer them refreshments if they look thirsty. In other words, let them do it."

A chill settled through me. "You're not serious."

"There isn't a damned thing you can do to save her. She was a dead woman walking the moment she opened her mouth. And don't forget she's a killer. She's a member of the Brotherhood, and cold feet or not, she's butchered innocents for money and for the sheer fucking joy of it. Don't get qualms because you used to get your sheets sticky dreaming about the amber gash between her thighs. Intervening will only get you killed, and I prefer you living rather than dead."

"You said you could help her."

She lifted on tiptoes, and leaned closer. The cowl brushed against my cheek, and I shuddered in revulsion at the rough touch of the wool. "Sometimes I lie."

~o~O~o~

When the Fox had gone I paced and agonised while the Altmer watched me, her expression strained. She looked different now, no longer the heart-stopping beauty I remembered from my boyhood. Pretty enough, and I still would have (although, since beauty never had been all that high on my list of requirements for a bed partner, that didn't mean much), but it was mainly due to paint and artifice, and to the exotic glamour that clung to her because of her race. The hollows beneath her eyes were a little too deep, her cheeks a little too gaunt, even for an elf. And I had no way of knowing whether she really had been as beautiful as I remembered, or if my memories were mistaken. After all I'd been an adolescent boy with no experience with women. Two female lovers entwined for all to see? Hardly a surprise I might have remembered that wrong.

What the Fox had said kept coming back to me. If the Altmer really was a member of the Dark Brotherhood – and I could see no reason to disbelieve him – then she had killed. And perhaps her victims hadn't been innocents, but I couldn't keep my thoughts from ticking back to Jory. I'd never seen the body, although it wasn't for want of trying: we'd balanced precariously on the slates of the overlooking shacks, trying to get a glimpse of the corpse as the Watch carried it out, wrapped in a shroud. There had been nothing to see and we'd slunk away, disappointed, with nothing but the tales of how he'd died to make us shudder with glee.

 _Let it go, Jack_ , I thought, as I paced the length of the room, crossing from the door to the window and back again, while the Altmer watched. As if I could.

I turned on her abruptly. "What the fuck happened in Bravil, anyway? That night, when you..." I trailed off, already regretting speaking.

Her eyes seemed filled with fire. "Do you really want to know?"

"Probably not." I pictured Jory, the monster he'd seemed when I was a boy. And the weeping shadow hidden behind the door as he emerged. A necklace of bruises on a woman's throat. "You know what, fuck it. It doesn't matter."

She was a murderer. But I'd killed too. I'd killed Pellis, and even if I hadn't understood what I was doing back then, I'd slaughtered the bandits who had attacked me and Millona without a second thought. With them, I'd understood exactly what it meant to steal away a life.

And I tried to stop myself from pacing, went to lean on the dresser, but I couldn't stay still for more than a couple of moments before I was on my feet again.

My gaze kept flicking towards the closed door. Fuck the Fox. Fuck whatever he said. He was full of shit anyway. Whatever came through that door, I'd protect her. Because wasn't that supposed to be what you did?

"What happened to your woman?" I asked. Because fuck knows I couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer than I could keep myself from pacing the room.

"My woman?"

"The Dunmer you lived with. Back in Bravil."

"Oh." She gave a slow lazy blink. "She took to this life better than I."

"You mean murdering."

"It's a way of life back in Morrowind. Not the Brotherhood of course, but..." A shrug. "Was she telling the truth?"

"Who? Your Dunmer?"

She gave me the sort of look you gave someone who had just said something irredeemably idiotic, and you can't work out whether they're serious or not. "The Gray Fox. Is she telling the truth?"

"What do you mean, 'she'—?"

The candles guttered out. Every single one and at the same time, as if they had each been pinched out with invisible fingers. There was no breeze. The Altmer drew in a sharp breath, and I held my hand out towards her in a stilling gesture as if she'd made to leap up. She hadn't. Instead she'd shrunk down into herself, wrapping her arms around her torso.

"Stay there." I moved to the door, and listened. No sound. Nothing, not even the creak of floorboards, the bustle of the inn below. An icy sensation swept over me, as if a chill wind had crept along the corridor. My breath frosted on the air.

 _Whatever comes_ , the Fox had said. Not 'Whoever'. And it wasn't just the sudden drop in temperature I could feel, but a sense of dread, a steady drip drip drip of remorseless terror, which stripped away my bravery, whatever was left of my courage, because I was nothing, just a thief, just an unwanted, abandoned boy who was good for nothing – selfish, lazy, cowardly – and the one woman I loved, if it had come to it, if it had been a zombie in those caverns outside Anvil, rather than just a skeleton, I would have shoved her at it, sacrificed her to save my own worthless hide, and fled because–

 _No. No, I wouldn't have. Not to Millona. Never._

I pressed my hands to my face. The thoughts were relentless, and not entirely my own. And whatever was silently coming up those stairs, I knew I didn't want to meet it.

"What is it?" the Altmer asked, as I backed away from the door.

A moment or two passed before I could speak. "We have to get the fuck out of here."

She rose to her feet, gaze flicking towards the door. "What's coming?"

"Nothing's fucking coming." I turned to the window and jerking open the shutters, stared in panicked confusion at the bars trapping us inside.

My fist slammed into the wall. "Shit!"

He'd chosen this room deliberately. that treacherous bastard. He'd _known._

 _Open the door,_ the Fox had said. _Usher it in._ "Fucking arsehole," I hissed under my breath, then jerked my gaze away to the dresser. "Help me."

Together we dragged the dresser to the door, both of us shivering now, because the air had gone bitterly cold, our breath wreathing mist. As we set it against the door, I felt a moment of panic, convinced the door would open outwards into the corridor, and whatever it was would stare bemusedly at the makeshift barricade before clambering over it and coming after us.

 _No_ , I thought, closing my eyes, remembering. The door opened inwards. We'd bought ourselves a little time.

"Will it hold?" the Altmer asked.

"You know more than I do."

"But you can kill it, can't you? She said you could kill it."

"I don't know who the fuck you're talking about." My voice rose, high pitched and tinged with panic. Outside the door the floorboards creaked, and I drew my sword, flexed my grip around the hilt.

 _You can do this_ , I told myself. This was a piece of piss. And when the Fox came back I'd beat the fucking shit out of him, cowl or no cowl. I'd make him pay.

It was right outside the door. There was no sound, only the Altmer's shallow breathing. I held my own breath, my gaze fixed on the dresser, on the door.

 _There's nothing there_ , I told myself. _There's_ –

Something crashed against the door, so hard the wood buckled. The Altmer screamed, stumbling back across the room, whirling towards the barred window. The door shattered inwards in a shower of splinters and I threw up my hand to protect my eyes. There was a shuddering scraping noise, and the dresser flew away from the door and slammed into my gut. It crushed me against the wall, knocking the wind from me.

And if I'd thought the room was cold before, the temperature dropped still further, until every joint in my battered body was aching and sore. Any lingering courage I might have been clinging onto was torn away, leaving me with nothing but stark terror. Leaving me weeping and sobbing, shoving at the dresser pinning me to the wall, because I was locked in that crate again, with something dead bucking beneath me.

It wasn't the stink of rot that filled the room, but a mustier scent: corpse shrouds, dust and slow decay. I clenched my hands against the dresser, and heaved, shoulder blades flexing against the wall. The crushing pressure eased, enough that I could suck in a couple of lungfuls of air, until something brushed against my cheek, soft as a spiderweb, and the smell of death enveloped me.

Something hung in the middle of the room, a drape of translucent, gauzy cloth between me and the Altmer. She opened her mouth to say something.

She never spoke. Instead something yanked her off her feet.

I jerked my gaze up, saw a dead thing in mid-air, flickering in and out of visibility. Beneath its tattered shroud shrivelled desiccated flesh clung to bones. It carried a sword in one hand, and the other hand was hooked around the Altmer's throat, and as it flickered in and out of existence, I could see the furrows in her neck where its fingers bit into her flesh. Her feet dangled half a yard off the ground, bucking and jerking like a hanged man taking his time to die.

At my choking gasp, the flickering thing turned its face towards me. The movement was slow, inevitable. No zombie this, but something much worse, and I was shaking, begging for my life, the thought that I ever could have hoped to fight it laughable, since I couldn't even speak beneath its terrible regard.

A crunch and the Altmer's throat split open. The wraith vanished as blood spilled down her chest, pattering on the floor, mingling with her piss, and through the blood, through her gaping throat, I saw a flash of gleaming bone.

Too much to hope the wraith had gone. A space of a heart beat and it was back, its attention fixed on me.

The Altmer dropped.

I pressed back against the wall, as if I could sink inside it and be hidden if I only tried hard enough.

And now came footsteps, slow and methodical, up the stairs. A boot crunched on the splintered remains of the door. And I couldn't turn my gaze away from the wraith. A jerk of its fingers and the dresser was wrenched away to crash against the opposite wall. Its shrivelled fingers clenched into a fist, and I felt a tug at my chest. It jerked its fist upwards, and I followed, my back sliding relentlessly up the wall. The wraith gave a piercing scream, and advanced, the drip drip drip of the Altmer's blood leaving a bloodsplatter trail in its wake.

I was on a level with it, pinned to the wall like a butterfly, as it brought its face up to mine. My throat knotted at the dead thing smell of it, the pores in its skin stretched tight over bones and tendons, how ancient it was, how hungry, and in its eyes nothing but the howling void. It reared up, still flickering out of existence, and brought its hand up to my throat.

"Stay." A man's soft voice. The wraith's hand froze next to my cheek. Its seething malice and fury at being thwarted rolled outwards in a cloud. "Release him."

It turned its head a fraction, seemed to consider. Then I crumpled to the ground. My skull slammed into the upturned bedside table, and my vision blurred. The sensation of the wraith's shroud brushing against my cheek brought up a shudder of revulsion, and my heels scrabbled at the floorboards in my desperation to escape. But I was too slow, too weak, especially when a hand pressed against my chest. He was gentle, but there was steel in his grip.

"I bear a message from the Speaker," he said. He had a Breton accent, soft and melodious. "He says 'no deal.'"

He leaned in close, his skin unnaturally cold and waxy, but his breath against my ear burned. "Tell that bitch I'll see her in Whitstone."

His hand clenched in my shirt with sudden violence, and slammed me back so my skull crunched against the wall. Dizziness crashed through me, a rolling wave of darkness that kept coming, on and on. Only a stinging pain in my neck kept me from passing out, followed by a surging heat that rippled from my neck, where the Breton had buried his face in the hollow of my throat. Feeding.

Every muscle in my body locked tight. A spasm in my legs, as I struggled, and he placed his hand against my chest, pressing me against the wall. His other hand cupped my cheek, almost tenderly pushing my head aside. Quiet little mews of desire sounded in the back of his throat, and gradually a quiet languorous bliss spread through me, until I no longer wanted to fight, but echoed his moans of pleasure. Until I reached up with one spasming hand, felt his hair come loose from its ponytail, and a thought glinted like a distant speck of light in a flood of darkness: that I could grip his hair and wrench him away. And instead I buried my fingers in his hair and sank into the welcoming ocean of darkness.

~o~O~o~

Someone was shaking me, and not gently. The back of my head knocked against the floor. I gave a wordless groan of protest, batted at them, but they wouldn't leave me be. Instead they grasped me by the shirt and hauled me up, dragging me out of the clinging darkness. Back into the world of light and shadow and pain.

A hard crack against my cheek roused me.

"Wha–" I opened my eyes, flinched at how even the dim light burned, and squeezed them shut. "Eyes hurt."

Not just my eyes. Every bit of me hurt. I felt weak and disconnected, like a puppet with its strings cut.

"You'll live." The voice was soft, not exactly sympathetic, but not impatient either.

I squinted up at the Fox, a memory winding its way up from the darkness. "He says 'no deal.'"

"Yeah. I figured that out already. Still it was worth a try."

 _Worth a try?_ Almost getting me killed was worth a try? I stared up at her, unable to find the words to tell her what I thought of her, how utterly furious I was. And then I hadn't a hope, because she'd gripped my jaw and turned my head to the side to examine the bite-mark in my neck. A splinter of pain drove up from my neck, through my left eyeball and right to the back of my skull. I gave an involuntary cry of pain, the pain so acute it might have had me voiding my bladder if a sharp mossy scent hadn't told me that my bladder had already been well and truly voided. I clawed for shame and embarrassment, found them missing, and instead I buried my face in her shoulder like a frightened child.

"Am I going to become a vampire?"

She went stiff for a moment, then wrapped her arms around my back. "No," she said. "Not unless you want to. I wouldn't recommend it personally. You're infected, but that's easily dealt with, so long as we're quick. Do you think you can stand? We need to get away from here."

Over her shoulder I saw what was left of the Altmer, and began to shake. Her hand caught my cheek, and turned my head away.

I stumbled down the stairs after her on shaking legs, clinging to the bannister. The inn was deserted, the fire burned down to embers in the grate.

"What happened to everyone?" I asked.

"The same thing that happened to you. Only they weren't so lucky."

" _Lucky_?"

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"Barely." I stared into the sunken bar, my gaze falling on an opened bottle of wine, flanked by two glasses, one full, the other upset, a dark stain spreading over the wood. And behind the bar, just visible, an outstretched hand.

The Fox pulled me away.

It was only once we were outside, with the cool night air on my face, that I began finally to regain my wits. I'd delivered the message, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else that I'd forgotten, left behind in the murk. "And no thanks to you. Why the fuck didn't you warn me?"

"I did warn you. It's hardly my fault if you chose not to listen."

"That... thing–"

"Which one? The vampire or the wraith?"

I shuddered. "The wraith. What was it?"

"The Wrath of Sithis. It's sent after members of the Dark Brotherhood who break the tenets."

"Did you know it was coming?"

"I didn't think it would—"

" _Did you know it was coming_?"

She stopped, and turned on me. "I hoped it was."

"Why?"

"Because if it came it meant she wasn't trying to bullshit me. That she'd told me the truth. But I didn't think it would attack you unless you did something stupid–"

I gritted my teeth. "It's me, remember?"

She grimaced in acknowledgement. "–And I didn't think Valtieri would be there." She turned away, sank against the side of the stable. "He knew. All along he knew. That son-of-a–"

"This... Valtieri?"

She shook her head. "The Speaker."

"The Speaker... That's what the vampire said. The message was from him. Did you mean to kill him?"

"Only to speak to him. To make a deal with him."

A chill ran along my spine. "What sort of deal? Not..."

"What, you're baulking because you think I want to arrange a murder? Please. I'm not afraid of doing my own dirty work." She turned away, moving again towards the stables. "And I made a far better killer than I ever did a thief."

I went after her, caught her arm and hauled her around. Or tried to at least; I was still weak and shaky, and she could have shoved me away with ease. Instead she let me do it, let me crush her against the wall. "How the fuck do you know any of this anyway?"

Contempt and challenge glittered in her eyes. "How do you think, Jack?"

And it sharpened then, my image of her coming into focus, and I saw the pattern I should have seen years ago. "You're one of them," I said numbly. "You're an assassin."

"I used to be." She brought her hand up to the cowl. "Now I'm something else."

"But the Gray Fox... he's not supposed..." I trailed off, tried again. "I mean, _she's_ not supposed to kill."

"The Gray Fox is a law unto himself. And I do take off the cowl from time to time."

Shaking now, I released her and sank down onto the wet grass. There was a pulsing pain in my neck. "So you're a murderer then."

"I told you you wouldn't like me when you got to know me."

"That's..." I straightened up, wavered a little as a wave of light-headedness struck me. "You know what, it doesn't fucking matter. If the legion turns up..."

"They won't. Not for a while."

"But if someone got out, rode for help..."

"No one got out, Jack. No one escaped. Valtieri didn't let them."

I looked back at the darkened inn, shivering now. "They can't all be–" And again, that glittering memory, much closer now. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and it came to me, dropping into my waiting hand like a cut purse. "Whitstone."

The Fox froze, so still she might have been a statue, then slowly turned her gaze to mine. " _What?_ "

"Whitstone."

"What about it?"

"He said he'd see you there."

Another frozen moment, then she came at me, shoved me so hard I slammed against the wall of the inn. " _Why didn't you say?_ "

"I just remembered now. I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry_?" She spat the word at me, rage and fury and terror in her eyes. "Well, that's all right then, isn't it? So long as you're fucking sorry."

~o~O~o~

The vampire had left the horses untouched. We stole a horse each, and I had to ride hard to keep up with the Fox, who rode with as little care for her animal as she had for my safety. I clung onto the horse in desperation, the pelting rain so heavy it ran into my eyes, blinding me. I wiped my face on my shoulder, and wondered what the fuck I was doing, why I was still following her after everything that had happened, after everything she'd done. But I never had been able to say no, and the terror in her eyes had been contagious. I couldn't help but follow.

The dawn was a red one, overshadowed by a gathering storm-cloud on the horizon. The lightening sky made my eyes sting, and the horse shied beneath me. Gods only know how I managed to keep my seat because the pulsing headache in my skull intensified, until I could hear the rushing of the blood in my veins like a torrential river in full flood.

It was brief, and passed quickly, but it left a churning hunger in my gut and a metallic taste in my mouth. I spat onto the dirt road, wished I had a drink to wash out the taste in my mouth, and spurred my horse on through the driving rain.

We rode not to the guild safe house on the bluff as I had expected, but into the village itself.

"Is it a good idea?" I asked, as she dismounted. "Going to meet him?"

"He won't be there. He's not a fool."

"But... Wait, are we..."

She was already gone, vanishing into the cottage. I struggled to dismount, my feet tangling in the stirrups. I almost fell as the horse pranced sideways, and floundered in the mud. My hip thumped painfully against the dry-stone wall as I straightened up, set my hand against it. Rough grit rasped at my fingers, as I looked at the door. She'd left it open. The sky overhead was the colour of an old bruise, and the metallic taste was back, and with it came a wave of nausea. The flood of saliva was my first warning, scant seconds before I threw up.

The puke was too dark. Unnaturally dark, and my knotted stomach growled with hunger. I breathed through it, then forced myself towards the open door, through the garden where I'd seen the children playing. Told myself it was so silent because they were still sleeping.

I didn't want to go instead. At the threshold, the metallic taste hit the back of my throat again, the air thick with the smell of blood, and my stomach clenching with mingled hunger and revulsion. My breath came in shallow, hitching breaths.

On the whitewashed plaster, near the door, I could see a perfectly formed child's hand print. Dark enough that it could have been mud. I knew it wasn't.

I pushed the door open with trembling fingers. The room beyond would be empty. Just the Fox, waiting for me. Smiling in relief and surrounded by children like the Lucky Old Lady statue back in Bravil. That was all I would see. That was all I would see.

The door slid open a foot or so, caught against something. I shoved a little harder, and there was a slithering sound as whatever it was blocking the door from opening slid across the ground

The Fox knelt in the middle of the room, shoulders hunched. A child lay cradled in her lap, sleeping. The old woman – the grandmother – was slumped against the wall, her throat a bloody mess. He hadn't been as gentle with her as he had been with me.

She had fought him.

I pressed my hand against my mouth. The child in the Fox's lap wasn't sleeping. And the Fox's hand was rising, reaching up for the cowl. And I couldn't stay, couldn't see any more.

I turned my back and ran.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Thanks to tafferling for betaing. And the usual: all comments are hugely appreciated, and constructive criticism is welcome. Thank you for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Two**

' _Arcane University: This place is unspeakably dirty and unkempt, no better than a slum. You will never find the students or wizards outside in the air, for they are squatting in their dark dungeons poring over profane texts and making crabbed scribbles on scrolls_.'

– _Guide to the Imperial City_ , by Alessia Ottus

In the darkness, I recognised Brey's heavy tread. I didn't turn around, but stayed slumped at the table, my hand clamped tight around the empty glass of wine. His starlight spell glimmered at the edge of my vision – I never had been able to work out whether mages were too cheap to use candles or too lazy to fetch them

"He said he was an associate," the other mage said. He'd lowered his voice, but worry and confusion had raised it a couple of pitches. "I wasn't sure if I should–" Here his voice dropped enough that I couldn't hear what he was saying, only murmurs, and a snatch of: "–think he's been bitten–"

"It's fine, Gedden," Brey said. "He is an associate. Technically. Go on back to bed. We'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. He's an old friend."

I gave a shaky and not entirely stable sounding laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geddon shoot me a look of alarm. He opened his mouth as if to question Brey further, then clearly thought better of it and turned his back on the two of us. Brey closed the door behind him, then came towards me briskly, clapping his hands together.

"You look like shit. What happened?"

"Something awful." I set my hands on the edge of the table and tried to stand, but my legs were too shaky, and I sank back down. Brey circled around the table, his gaze shifting from the bottle of wine to how my hand trembled around the wine glass.

"And did you come here because you needed help or did you just want to drink up my stock of wine?"

"S'good wine," I said, squinting into the glass. "Drinks too quickly though." I looked around. "And this is pleasant. Better than where the associates have to sleep. Very nice. Very comfortable."

"You never sleep at the University. You have a house on the Waterfront."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I've never had recourse to use the beds."

He rolled his eyes and came closer. "May I?" he said, with a nod towards my neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut as he tilted my head and a spike of searing pain pierced my skull. He muttered something I didn't catch under his breath, and crossed the room to a cabinet. He rifled through it, bottles clinking, then returned to the table.

"Drink this," he said, setting a potion in front of me.

My hand cupped over the bite. "Will it cure me?"

"It might, but on the other hand there's a good chance it could kill you. Alchemy never was my strong point. Either way, you won't become a vampire so win-win as far as I'm concerned."

I considered this, then shrugged and knocked back the potion. It tasted bitter, with a sour rotting flavour, overlaid by a sickly sweet taste that made my stomach lurch. I flinched, felt a prickling in my neck, and gagged. "Gods, that's foul."

Brey studied me. "But on the plus side," he said, frowning, "you're still alive, so luckily I'm not stuck with the inconvenience of disposing of your corpse. Meanwhile, something tells me you won't have any qualms about washing it down with more of my wine."

"Thanks, _old friend_ ," I said as he fetched another bottle of wine. I gave another laugh, sounding half-hysterical. That cottage in my mind kept flashing through my mind: the bloody handprint on the wall. And how the little girl's fingers had curled protectively around her doll.

I felt sick, and took a few deep breaths. Couldn't risk retching up the potion before it had taken effect.

Brey was bent over the bottle of wine. "Laugh all you want, shithead," he said, his voice muffled as he worked the cork free with his teeth. "I know you never liked me much."

He turned around, seemed a little startled to find me watching him.

"Wasn't that something to do with you always wanting to kick the shit out me?" I asked.

"Funny thing," he said as he sat down. "You fought with Armande more often than you fought with me. The two of you could beat seven kinds of shit out of each other and you were still close as brothers. You always got away with things in a way I never did."

"Yeah, but look at you now. You've got a proper job. You're a mage, and I'm... whatever the fuck I am."

"I thought you were a thief."

"So did I." I drew my hand down over my face. "But right now I'd do anything, give anything, to–" _The tiny hand curled tight. The doll, a precious replica of its mistress_. Someone had paid a great deal of money for that. "Oh fuck." I squeezed my eyes shut to stem the tears.

"What in Oblivion's wrong?"

I gave a hitching breath, brought the glass up to my lips with a shaking hand. "You were right about me. I get people killed. I always have."

"I have a strong suspicion that I'm going to regret asking you this, Jack, but what the fuck happened?"

And gods help me I told him everything. Everything.

By the time I'd finished, he sat slumped back in his chair, clutching his glass of wine in a white-knuckled hand. The starlight spell had long since winked out and we'd sat in semi-darkness, as I told him of the guild, of the Gray Fox and his one-man war against the Dark Brotherhood, which led inexorably to the cottage. To the children lying butchered on a floor strewn with blood-soaked rushes. I'd had too much wine and far too little sleep, and the story was less than coherent by the end. Too many folds, too many blind alleys, but to his credit Brey sat in silence and listened, moving only to top up our glasses of wine. By the time I'd finished he was a shadow in the gloom, and I was glad of the darkness because I was fighting hard to stem the urge to cry.

"Well," he said finally, "something's massively fucked up there."

I gave a choked laugh. "And that's probably the understatement of the era."

"No, it's..." He shook his head, frowning, rasping his hand over his stubbled jaw. Then he gave an impatient twist of his hand, and renewed the Starlight spell. "There's something _weird_ going on. You've been fucking this woman and you don't even know her name?"

I stared at him. " _That's_ the detail you're going to fixate on?"

"Well, you've got to admit it doesn't sound like you. You've always been a soppy cunt when it comes to women. You still mooning around after whatsherface?"

I shifted on my seat, my lips tightening. "No."

"Liar. Point is it seems relevant somehow, but for the life of me I can't figure it out."

I grunted, took another swallow of wine. "Anyway I've not been fucking her. Not for a while anyway."

"And why would that be, Jack?"

 _Because I've been mooning around after Millona_. "Um..."

"Nah, don't tell me, let me guess. Because you're in love with a woman you can't have. You're in love with a bloody countess."

"She's not a countess."

"Not yet." He shook his head. "You know your trouble, Jack? You always want something more. You never can be happy with what you've got."

Now that stung. "That isn't true at all."

"No? So if she wasn't noble, if she was just some woman on the street, you'd feel the same way? You always were full of shit."

" _You_ –" I broke off. I'd risen halfway out of my seat with my fists clenched before I caught myself. "You're baiting me."

"And you almost fell for it too." He poured out the last of the wine, even the dregs. "Why did you come here anyway? What were you expecting me to say? 'Don't worry, it's not your fault?' Bullshit. That's not what you want to hear and you know it." His voice was mocking, thick with bitterness. "You wanted me to say the exact fucking opposite. Ain't that why you came to me, and not Armande?"

"Probably, yeah." That, and this hadn't been something I could face Armande with. The shame of it, of those dead kids, innocents who'd had even less of a chance than I had, weighed down my chest so heavily I could hardly breath.

"It was my fault," I said. "All of it. Those children and what happened in Bravil. To Elise..."

I sank forwards and rested my head on my folded arms. The world spiralled around me. Blood rushed to my head, and every time I closed my eyes I saw that tiny hand, curled tight around the doll. And the Fox, kneeling in the gore, like a condemned man waiting for the bite of the axe, reaching up for his cowl...

Why couldn't I shake the feeling something was wrong with that picture?

I covered my face with my hands, as if that could blot it out. " _Fuck_."

"I can't tell you Elise wasn't your fault, Jack. Would it help if I did?"

"Probably not."

"I didn't think so. I can't say what happened wasn't your fault, because I think it was your fault, at least partly, but _Elise_..." He brought the wine to his mouth but didn't drink, only eyed the surface darkly. "She'd have got herself killed one way or another. You know she was going to go after Pellis."

"What?"

He nodded, and wiped his eyes although they were dry as far as I could see. "Remember, when Armande was beaten so badly he couldn't get out of bed without weeping? She was going to walk into the guardroom. She was going to find Pellis when he was sleeping or drinking, flirt her way in or whatever, and slit his throat. Right there in the fucking guard room."

I stared at him, aghast. "They'd have butchered her."

"Yeah, but only after Pellis was dead. You know what she was like; she was practically feral sometimes, and when she was angry she didn't give a damn about consequences or what might happen."

"That was seriously her plan?"

He nodded grimly. "It took me hours to try to talk her out of it, and even then there was no way she was going to listen to me in the long run. Not when she'd fixed her mind on something. It was you that kept her from doing it. You and your stupid fucking plan, which I always said was a terrible idea. You remember what she said to me, that day we followed you down into the caves under Bravil? When I asked her not to go?"

"'Don't be such a gutless worm.'"

"That's it. That's _exactly_ it. Word for fucking word. Because I thought chasing around after zombies in the darkness was a moronic thing to do and I didn't want her to get hurt. A gutless worm."

"It was a cruel thing to say, but she didn't mean it. You know what she was like. The number of times she came close to almost killing me..."

"She loved you, Jack."

I froze, the wineglass on its way to my mouth. "No, she didn't." _A hand against my chest. Lips pressed against mine in the darkness. Her dark eyes tilted up towards mine._ "It was you she loved."

"No, she put up with me. She was in love with you." He was trying not to cry. The Starlight spell had winked out again. I couldn't see his face, but I could hear his voice twisting with the strain of keeping in his tears, how strangled it was.

"We were just kids." A shaky breath, and I was crying myself now. I tilted the glass up and swallowed it back, dregs gritty between my teeth. "We were children. We didn't know what love was. Sometimes I wish I still didn't."

He studied me, then slapped his hands on the table and pushed himself up. "Fuck it. Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"This wine isn't doing the trick. I think the pair of us could do with getting shit-faced."

"Hmm." I studied the last few drops of wine in the bottom of my glass. "Actually, I think I could do with getting sober."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "Fuck being sober. There's time enough for that in the morning, and just as much time to indulge in regret and recrimination as well. But whatever you like. I'm going to find a tavern that isn't the Mortar and fucking Pestle and I'm going to drink until I feel the urge to introduce my guts to the gutter. And with any luck I'll meet a girl who's curious about what exactly an imaginative mage can do with his staff."

"Now that's an image I'll never be able to get out of my head."

"You coming or what? I'll get the first round in."

Well, since when have I been known to turn down the offer of a drink? "Fuck it. Yeah."

"Good man."

And so we moved to an inn in the Arena District, where we drank until the innkeeper turfed us out onto the street, and we were forced on to a place Brey knew, which was dim and gloomy, with a lingering smell of sweat and stale beer that fugged the air, and which was just what we needed. We drank until even my name was a distant memory, until I couldn't be sure whether I was Jack or Corvus or someone else entirely.

By this time I was drunk enough that time had little meaning, and my memory of the evening was filled with skips and stutterings, so that piecing together exactly what happened has proven difficult. I have memories of hammering on a door, the gods only know whose, while Brey clung onto my arm, trying to drag me away. Of Brey yelling, "I'm a fucking mage, you twat!" when he got into an altercation with someone on the street. Of my betting him I could circumnavigate the entire District by running along the top of the wall. Thankfully a guard intervened before I could fall and break my neck, although I still maintain I could have pulled it off.

It was, I'm afraid, one of those sorts of nights.

And through it all threaded a feeling of weariness stronger than I'd ever felt before, because I knew that all of this was temporary: that I'd wake up in the morning with the worst hangover imaginable and the truth would hit me like a pallet of bricks.

That I was running, because at heart and at soul, I was a coward.

~o~O~o~

Almost inevitable perhaps that we'd end up back at the Waterfront District, lying on the banks of the Rumare. Those sorts of nights always ended that way, the ones that didn't end with me waking in a bed that wasn't mine, anyway. Brey hadn't taken much persuading. Certainly less than I'd needed when I'd let him talk me into a drink aboard the Bloated Float, a decision that had proved unwise. I'd lured him to the Waterfront with promises of a stolen bottle of brandy stashed at the shack, but once we were there, the cool breeze drifting in off the vast inland sea sobered us up enough to realise that cracking open a bottle of brandy on top of the ale and wine we'd already drunk would be a very, _very_ bad idea.

"You know I met Sanguine once," I said, gazing up at the moons.

He heaved himself up onto his elbows. "You're full of shit."

"I bloody did. And I don't give a damn whether you believe me or not."

"Well, what was he like then."

"He was..." I paused, picking at a stain on the front of my shirt. The remnants of the fried pancake stuffed with stewed songbirds we'd stopped off for at a food stall and which I could still sort of taste in the back of my throat every now and then. "He was very friendly."

He stared at me with an odd expression on his face. "You met the Daedric Prince of Hedonism and Debauchery and he was _friendly_?"

"Yeah. I mean, y'know, in a touchy-feely sort of way..." I shook my head. "All right, maybe 'friendly' wasn't exactly the right word for... for what happened."

"I don't want to know. Don't tell me–"

"I wasn't going to fucking tell you."

" _Good_." He sighed, and lobbed a stone into the water. "You know, I bet if I hadn't been there that day in the Pestle you'd have walked right in and got chatting with Kalthar and his bunch of cunts, and they'd have been friendly right back. Pisses me right the fuck off."

"Because you're jealous."

" _No_." Defensiveness kicked in. We both heard it, and he gave a grimace of acknowledgement. "Well, maybe I am. A bit."

"Maybe if you didn't speak the way you do..."

He snorted. "You mean I should put on an accent, speak fake Colovian like you? This is who I am. If it's not good enough for that bunch of cunts–"

"See, that's the thing. I'm not sure they're the sort that appreciates being called a bunch of cunts. And you are faking it, Brey. Your accent wasn't this strong even when we was in Bravil. I've heard rice farmers who've barely set foot out of the delta with accents that ain't as strong as yours. You're faking it as much as I am."

His eyes had gone dark. "So what if I am?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. Just can't figure out why, is all. It's... it's almost like you don't want them to like you. Or you don't think they will, so you're making damn sure that you give them a reason, so that then at least you can say, 'oh, look what a bunch of snobbish cunts they are, I never even had a–'"

"Shut up." His voice was a growl.

I subsided. "Sorry."

Silence followed for a long time. I watched the moons, watched Brey. Listened to his breathing, how the rasp in his chest suggested he was crying. I looked away, and after a while, he shifted, swiped surreptitiously at his eyes with the back of his hand, and spoke.

"I never thought I'd miss Bravil."

"Same," I said, and he glanced at me. "But I don't think it's Bravil itself that we're missing. You ever see kids on the street, not rats or anything, but just kids... playing and think–"

"Like the ones in your cottage?"

I flinched. Pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, nauseous again.

Brey kicked his boot at the damp earth "Sorry."

"S'okay. Um..." I closed my eyes until I'd regained my trail of thought. "You ever see kids playing and think 'that should have been us. Why'd _we_ never get that?'"

He gave a non-committal one-shouldered shrug, neither denial nor agreement.

"Well, I think that's part of it. We miss what we were, what we should've had."

"Our childhoods?" he said.

"Yeah. And the people we used to be as well. Even after all the shit we'd all been through, we never really knew what the world was like. We were just a bunch of stupid kids who thought we'd get to go on being kids for the rest of our lives."

"And Elise was still alive." He sounded numb.

"And Elise was still alive." My voice twisted with sudden rage. "Gods, I wish Pellis was still alive too. I wish he was here right fucking now so I could kill the fucker all over again. That bastard. That _bastard_."

"Pellis didn't kill Elise." His voice was barely above a breath.

"What do you–"

"I did."

I went cold, certain I'd misheard. "What?" And then, when he stayed silent, staring at me as if stunned by what he'd just said, I lunged forward and gripped his robes. "What the fuck did you just say?"

He took a breath and then spoke again, his words slow as if he was feeling his way through treacherous uncertain footing. "I'm the one that killed her."

"You're lying."

"I wish to all the gods I was."

I shrank away from him. "Why? Why would you..."

"I didn't mean to. One moment I was normal. Angry with you, because she wouldn't stop going on about how fucking clever you were, but that was… that was normal..." He took a breath. "And the next moment I was flooded with this searing hateful rage. Elise said something – gods help me, I can't even remember what it was, only that it was trivial – and I looked at her and all I could think of was this image I'd always had of the two of you together and I–"

His voice cracked.

I pressed my hand to my mouth. "Brey–"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "I just wanted to speak to her. She thought I was trying to kiss her. She tried to shake me off, told me it wasn't the fucking time–"

"Brey, don't–"

"So I broke her neck." He shuddered. "And I told Armande it was Pellis and I ran because it was all I knew how to do."

I sat back. Closed my eyes. Thought, _That's..._ And the thought trailed off, unfinished.

"Say something, Jack." Brey's voice was pleading, like a child's.

"I don't know what to say." I forced myself to look at him. "Was it magic?" Because as much of an arsehole as Brey had been back then and still was, he had loved Elise, and I couldn't ever see him hurting her.

He nodded. "I didn't realise it for ages. Some fucking Breton I am, eh?" There was a note of relief in his voice. "Not until after I joined the guild and started to learn more about the different schools of magic. Someone cast a spell on me, Jack. A high level illusion spell. A pretty powerful one. And I reckon Pellis knew about as much magic as you did. They say he killed Scipio in jail, but–"

"He didn't. Or at least, I don't think he did. Something he said, before he tried to kill me. 'Scipio's dead and I'm next.'" I rubbed my face. "Gods, I haven't thought about this in years."

"Yeah, well, I have. About all I've been doing, trying to track the bastards down. You know the court mage went missing not long after it all went tits up, and someone in Bravil was turning kids into zombies."

I shuddered at that. "You think he was a necromancer?"

"I've looked into all the mages who were in the Bravil chapter then. I don't think it was any of them. I've been trying to track him down, so far without success. Wherever he is, he's gone to ground."

"Assuming he's still alive."

"Gods, I hope he is. Because I'm going to rip out his worm-eaten heart and make the fucker eat it piece by bloody piece. I'd soul-trap him myself if the thought of it didn't make my flesh creep." His voice trembled, as he clenched his fists in rage. I stared at them, thinking that those very same hands had been the ones that broke Elise's neck. And he followed my gaze, perhaps thinking the same thing. When he spoke again, his voice was less certain. "Are you... Are you going to tell Armande? I'd understand if you do, Jack, but I just... If you could give me some warning so I know he's coming to kill me..."

"I won't tell Armande," I said, after the silence had stretched out long enough. Guilt twisted like a dagger in my heart, but although Armande was my brother, Brey was a friend too, or might have been if we hadn't both been such little shits when we were young. "I can't see what good it'd do him now, knowing. I wish to fuck you hadn't told _me_."

He was silent for a few moments. There was an awful moment where I thought he was going to apologise. Thankfully he didn't, but what he did say was almost worse.

"You know, you should tell her. Your countess. You should tell her how you feel."

I grimaced. "I think someone just hit you with a fuckwit spell."

"I'm serious. I never told Elise that I loved her, and there ain't a day goes by that I don't regret it."

"Would it have changed anything?"

"No, probably not, but that's not the point. You should tell her, Jack. Don't waste a fucking minute."

"I'm no one. I'm _worse_ than no one. I'm a piece of criminal scum, who's done nothing but lie to her about who I am and where I come from. How do you think that's going to end, exactly? Because my money would be on 'not well'." Godsdamn. I could hear my traitorous voice rising in pitch, the brattish child in me whining: _Not fair._ The only thing in the world I wanted and I couldn't have it. Tears prickled in my eyes and I curled my hands on my legs, fingers biting into muscle as hard as I could, hard enough to hurt. I forced myself to think instead of those slaughtered children, and the old woman who must have been their grandmother, how she'd sprawled her body across the littlest in a vain attempt to protect her.

 _Your fault. You stupid fuck._

Brey was watching me. His expression was strange, as if he'd seen something in me he hadn't expected to, and wasn't sure how to feel about it. "You'll never know if you don't try."

"She deserves better than me." And even as I said it I thought about Marus. Nice enough, but the thought of him marrying Millona made me feel physically sick. Mind you it could just have been the wine.

"We all deserve better than you," Brey reminded me, his voice still shaky. "Unfortunately some of us are stuck with what we've got."

~o~O~o~

For the first time in a long time I was thinking of Elise again, letting myself remember her as a person rather than as something awful that happened. We'd been too young to know what the hell we were doing, either of us. Too young to know how short life could be, even after everything we'd seen. Especially me.

Don't waste a fucking minute, Brey had said, and those words kept coming back to me as the evening progressed.

We'd given up on doing the sensible thing and getting some sleep, and found an inn instead, the sorts of place that never closed. Brey had found himself a girl to talk to, a fellow Breton, and while I waited for the barman to stop scratching his balls, fish his hand out of his pants and serve me, I watched them. She was laughing at some off-colour joke he'd told. Brey laughed too, but there was a moment when she looked away and his expression went still and grave. I found myself watching his hands, pictured those hands either side of Elise's head, cupping her cheeks, the way he'd used to when he kissed her. I couldn't get that image out of my head: those hands on Elise's cheeks again, only instead of kissing her he snaps her neck.

The poor bastard.

 _Don't waste a fucking minute._

I caught his eye, and shot him a look. He murmured something to the girl and she looked a little startled. He flicked his hand towards me. I saw his lips move, making his excuses, and then he heaved himself up. She stared after him, looking a little startled at how easily he'd left her side. I'm not sure Brey even noticed. For all his whinging about not fitting in, he could have made friends easily enough if he'd only bloody tried. "What the fuck do you want now?"

"I didn't want to disturb you. Not if you're–"

"What do you want, Jack?"

I thumped my hand against the bar. "I want to go to Anvil."

"Now? You're shit-faced. So am I for that matter." He glanced back over his shoulder. "And I've got company."

"That's why it's got to be now. If I wait till I'm sober... Well, if I wait till I'm sober I'm never going to go. I'll chicken out, and you were right."

His eyes lingered on me. "Say that again."

"Say what again?"

"That I was right."

"I don't think I'm physically capable of saying it again."

He didn't reply, only folded his arms and waited. His face was impassive, but in his eyes lingered the gleam of a smile.

I gritted my teeth. "Brey. You were – fuck, this is actually painful – right."

"Could've said it with a bit more enthusiasm, you know."

"You're a bastard."

"And you're a drunken twat."

"Aye, you're definitely right about that." We laughed, slumping against each other. For tonight all our problems would be forgotten, even if we'd regret it in the morning. The mood had shifted through melancholy and anger to a sort of deliberate light-heartedness, edged with hysteria. And there was relief mixed in there too, particularly for Brey, who must have spent the years since Bravil in a terror of how we would react if we ever found out. In truth, he was lucky it was me he'd finally spilled his guts to, because I'm almost positive Armande would have killed him.

Brey glanced at the girl, and opened his mouth like he was about to explain.

In the end he didn't bother.

"She was pretty," I said, as we stumbled out onto the street.

"She was all right."

"You should've asked her along. Invited her back with us."

He shrugged. "Not my sort really."

"Yeah, about that..." I swung around, walking backwards. "What is your sort? You can't seriously tell me that in all this time you haven't met anybody. There must be someone."

"Not really. Not since… y'know."

I stopped walking so abruptly he almost bumped into me. "It's been years."

"I've had women," he said, a little sharpness creeping into his tone. I grinned. Still as prickly as ever, especially when the reputation of his manhood was at stake. "I just haven't found anyone special. I've been too busy being a productive member of society."

"I'm productive."

"Leeching off innocent people isn't productive, Jack. Get a fucking proper job."

"I have a proper fucking job. I'm a Mages' Guild associate, remember?"

"Gods help us all."

~o~O~o~

By the time we reached the guild, my enthusiasm was starting to wear off. The transportation pad seemed so innocuous, so innocent. I'd never given it much thought before, although I realised now that I'd always skirted around it carefully, as if I suspected some kind of trap might snap shut if I got too close. I couldn't get rid of the image of myself being torn apart mid-air, and splattering my entrails halfway across Cyrodiil.

"Will it hurt?"

"Shh."

"Yeah, but... Will it _hurt_?"

"I've done this loads of times," Brey said, with an airy wave of his hand that was far less reassuring than it ought to have been. "It should be fine."

"'Should be?' What the fuck do you mean, should be?"

"Jack, this was your idea. Do you want to go to Anvil or not?"

I glanced at the pad and took a step backwards. "I think maybe I should wait for the morning. I think maybe this was a bad idea."

He gripped my shoulder and shoved me towards the pad. "Don't be so fucking gutless."

It was another interesting experience, and one I never wanted to have again, had I the choice.

Shimmering surging flames and a scatter of voices. Thousands of them, millions, all chattering in my head at once. My body wrenched, and spun like a child's top, twisted this way and that and in every direction at once.

I wasn't ripped apart. I didn't splatter my entrails everywhere.

But I did throw up.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Thank you to Tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are hugely appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Three**

' _The seat of Anvil County is by the sea, and at first glance, is very pretty, but when you examine it closely, turns out to be quite unpleasant. The water views are charming, but on the docks and in the harbor district outside of town you will find many sailors and tramps and dirty persons of little worth. Castle Anvil is clean and well- ordered, and within the town walls, some houses are bright and cheerful, but others are derelict and abandoned, or shabby and neglected, with plaster fallen in patches from the stonework, and lunatics and drunkards may be encountered everywhere_.'

– _Guide to Anvil_ , by Alessia Ottus

I gripped the ivy, hauled myself up onto the roof of Anvil castle, and sprawled on the sloping shingles, looking up at the stars. Then I frowned, because the stars seemed to be drifting upwards across the sky, and that seemed a remarkably odd thing for them to do.

In fact it was I who was slipping. I tried to stay my slide by setting a boot against a chimney, but the tiles were wet thanks to the recent rain, and my downward momentum continued as I swung around the chimney in a slow leisurely arc. Huh, I thought, and braced my hand against the tiles. This time I really did stop moving.

There are few views as stunning as the one from the roof of Anvil Castle. The city watchlights were softly muted, casting a comforting haze of light upon the sleeping city. The docks were more brightly lit, and further beyond the sentinel of the lighthouse towered over all, its light mingling with the soft kiss of the moonlight on the water. Even if I had almost managed to get myself killed through an ill-advised bout of drunken cavorting about the rooftops, it should have been a peaceful sight.

Only it wasn't.

Someone was watching me. An atavistic prickle of fear on the back of my neck made me lift my head. I surveyed the darkness of the roof, all the crevices and shadows, so many places where someone or something could hide. I wasn't an easy man to creep up on under normal circumstances, but it was gradually becoming clear to me that I might have been a bit drunker than I'd realised.

A scratching sound, like nails on shingles, made my heart clench tight with fear. Made me think of nails on stone. On wood. On flesh.

"Who's there?" My voice trembled. And there was a movement, a flicker of shadows. I jerked my gaze towards it, found nothing but shadows cast by a guard crossing through the courtyard below with a torch.

Bastarding bloody shadows.

But I wasn't kidding myself. There was something there. I'd seen the glitter of eyes, the shift of something that wasn't all shadow, but flesh.

I shifted position, rising first to a crouch, and then to standing, my hand on the hilt of my sword. Another scratching sound, closer now. _Closer_.

Dead things don't fuck about on rooftops. They just don't. There were no skeletons up here. No corpses or zombies.

Unless there were.

"That makes no fucking sense," I told myself. "How would a zombie have got up onto the roof?"

 _It climbed, you idiot. Same as you did. What, you think zombies can't climb? The fresh ones can._

The truth I'd relied on for so long, that lent me the courage to run about on rooftops, to leap across gaps that would have had most men wetting themselves, melted like snow in spring. Because what if there _were_? What if there were zombies up on the rooftops and I'd just never been unlucky enough to stumble on one?

The rooftops were quiet, after all. Exactly the sort of peaceful out of the way place where a necromancer could practise his work with no fear of being observed. One who couldn't stand the thought of the sewers, and the gods knew that wasn't such a far-fetched idea.

 _Stop it. Stop being such a fool. There's nothing there._

But there was. There fucking was. Something was moving in the shadows, and I was being watched. My balance wavered, and I fought to draw air into my lungs, because the world was closing in, the sky was falling, and this was it, this was how I would die, in the one place I'd always felt safe.

Terrible things happen in peaceful places.

And I cursed myself, because why in the name of all the gods had I thought it a good idea to go to the Count's Arms for a stiffener first?

If I got out of this alive, no fucking way was I ever going to drink again. Probably.

Something surged out of the shadows at me. So fast, much faster than I was expecting. I dodged on instinct, remembered too late where I was, balanced precariously on the sloping roof. My feet slipped out from under me, and I landed hard on my knees, a sharp crack of the tiles ringing out. And then I was falling, my momentum carrying me faster and faster. I scrabbled at the shingles to stop myself, but couldn't get purchase and there were no convenient chimneys now between me and the drop.

And at the apex of the roof, silhouetted against Masser, one of the stable cats arched its back, bottlebrush tail fluffed up and eyes glaring at me with the message: _You utter fuckwit._

And then I was falling and there wasn't a damn thing I could do.

~o~O~o~

A simple innocuous little phrase like 'woke up' is in no way a suitable description of regaining consciousness after a night like the one I'd had. I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth, and ascertained that the reason my face felt a bit numb was because it was buried in a pillow.

There was a moment of 'actually, maybe this won't be so bad' and then the hangover flooded in. The usual sort of thing: head filled with splinters, stomach with curdled milk.

I worked my face deeper into the pillow, thinking that death had to be preferable to this. A filmy substance coated my teeth, as if moths had spun a cocoon in my mouth. I ran my tongue across the roof of my mouth and turned my head to the side, hoping for a friendly and convenient bucket.

 _Wait, where the fuck am I?_

A bedroom. Stone walls, draped with tapestries.

 _Oh shit. Oh shitting shitting shit. Jack, what the fuck have you done?_

"You're awake." A woman spoke, and I twisted up, a movement that was ill-advised, since it flooded me with wrenching nausea that I had to breathe through. My first thought was that it was her: that I'd found my mystery woman again or that she'd found me, and despite my swearing off her, I'd succumbed (which admittedly might not have proved that much of a shock), but it was much, much worse than that. Millona moved out from behind the screen.

I gaped at her.

"Millona, I..." Her expression was one of innocence, her lips pressed together as if she was trying not to laugh. "Um..." I tugged the covers up around my chest, and squinted at her, lost for words.

"Feeling a little delicate?" she asked. "Funny, last night you swore blind you weren't drunk."

"Oh gods."

She sat on the edge of the bed, and lowered her voice, conspiratorially. "Just a suspicion, but I think you might have been mistaken about that."

I buried my face in my hands. "What am I doing here, Millona?"

"You mean you don't remember?"

I was trying to work out if this was in fact one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. "It was... a difficult night."

"Ah. Difficult. That's what you call it."

"We didn't—" And thank the gods I broke off before I completed that particular sentence. My gaze darted around the room, taking in my surroundings. I had been here before. This was the room where they'd housed me after we'd been attacked by the bandits. And I was fully dressed.

Thank _fuck_. I wasn't exactly in the mood to find out what it would feel like to have Count Umbranox string me up by my balls for defiling his only daughter. And even so my relief was tinged with disappointment.

Millona didn't help matters by raising her eyebrows, all innocence. "Didn't what?"

I groaned. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

She didn't answer me, but the wicked smile that spread across her face told me that, yes, she was enjoying my misery very much indeed. I sat up, burning in humiliation, but it was rather like probing an infected tooth: I needed to know just how badly I'd humiliated myself.

"What exactly happened last night, My Lady?"

"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows, still smiling. "We're back to 'My Lady' are we?"

A chill rippled down my spine. "Why?"

"You _really_ don't remember?"

"Gods." I gripped my forehead. "You heartless wench. Take pity on me."

"I'm sorry, Corvus. I'm afraid I share my father's opinion on such matters. No pity for bandits, pirates, mutineers or drunken fools."

I dropped my hands, and glanced at her. "You think me a fool?"

"After last night? Absolutely. And if I'm such a heartless wench, I'm certain you won't want this recuperation draft I brought you." She dangled a small potion vial between her fingers. "Redwort oil and dried powdered ginseng. I'm told it's just the thing for hangovers."

I could have wept. "I take it all back. You're the Lady Mara in disguise." I uncapped the bottle and knocked it back. A chilled sensation ran down my gullet, followed by a spreading numbness which took its sweet time reaching my throbbing skull. I groaned, and dropped back in bed, tugging the covers over my head. She laughed, and the bed shifted as she sat beside me. In the warm cocoon beneath the covers I went still, with a momentary skip of my heart. It took all my courage to pull the covers down, certain that the contents of my heart would be written stark on my face. Assuming I hadn't already spilled the truth of it in my drunken rampage. The thought of that terrified me, but I hoped for it at the same time: if I had, it made things simpler.

She was so close I could have reached up and pulled her down into a kiss.

"I really don't drink like this all the time, Millona. I swear it on... on..."

"On Cyrodilic brandy?" she suggested.

"Well, it is precious to me." And gods knew I didn't have much else that I could swear on. No faith, no family. I wriggled up the bed a little, putting some distance between us. "Something awful happened."

Her amusement faded. "What do you mean? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Nothing wounded but my pride, although I'm not sure that'll ever recover. I just... I don't want you thinking I'm some drunken oaf because of this."

"Tell me what happened, Corvus. Please?"

I shook my head. I could smell my own body, stale sweat and alcohol seeping from my pores, the grimy sensation of having slept in my clothes. Shame and embarrassment washed over me. "Does your father know I'm here?"

"Of course. I told him you were attacked by bandits again."

"And he believed that?"

Her gaze flitted away. "As far as I know," she said, cautiously. So he almost certainly hadn't believed it. She cast a nervous glance at the door. "I should really let you get ready. If they find me here, we'll both be in trouble. Do you think you could stomach breakfast?"

My guts were emitting a strange series of rumbles and gurgles like the depths of Dwemer ruins. "I think perhaps not."

"Probably for the best." Her expression was serious, but amusement glinted in her eyes. "Since you smell like a rancid fox."

A prickle of unease. I shifted, and my unease must have shown on my face because Millona hesitated, her expression uncertain.

"Did I say something wrong?"

 _A hand curled tight. Blonde hair matted with blood. And a hand reaching up for a runed cowl._

"It was nothing. Someone walking over my grave." My smile was unconvincing. I wasn't ready to think about what had happened, wouldn't be, I was certain, until the hangover had passed. And then maybe I'd get shit-faced again, so that I could keep blotting it out for as long as possible and the cycle would begin anew.

I felt the weight of Millona's hand on mine. My gaze shifted up to meet hers.

The headache was receding, but a stab of pain jabbed at the base of my neck. She was going to marry someone else, I thought. Marus or Count Goldwine, and I wondered which one would hurt more.

Shit, why here? Why the fuck had I come here? Had it been out of some need to punish myself? To twist the knife deeper and remind myself of how lost I was, how useless and stupid and selfish–

 _Stop it. Stop it now._

"I'll send someone up," she said, rising. "This heartless wench would advise a bath."

My mouth was dry as I said, "I'm not in the habit of taking advice from heartless wenches, but I'll take it under advisement."

"It's good to see you, Corvus," she said, quietly, as she moved towards the door. "I did miss you. And I don't really think you're a fool."

"Don't you?" I said to the empty room when she was gone. "Because I fucking well do."

~o~O~o~

The potion was slow-acting, but after a long soak in lavender-scented water, with my hair freshly brushed through, and the headache relegated to the back of my skull, I was left feeling somewhat closer to human. The servant had also brought up a fresh set of clothes, plain Colovian garb, which, while it was decent enough quality, was also the sort of thing a servant might wear. Hard not to wonder if I wasn't being sent a message.

As I folded up my old clothes, a fluttering scrap of parchment fell from a pocket. I picked it up and gave it a cursory glance, then a second closer look, my lips tightening.

 _Now who's the gutless worm? Tell her how you feel, shithead, or you'll regret it. Take it from a man who knows. B._

Fucking mages. Fucking bunch of smart-arsed cunts with their fireballs and their teleportation spells. I scrunched the note up and threw it on the table, trying to remind myself that this whole mess had been my idea. Although Brey should have known better than to go along with it. My only consolation that he probably felt as bad this morning as I did.

My hangover continued to lurk like a monster in the shadows of a cave, reminding me every so often that it wasn't quite done with me yet, but I couldn't hide here forever.

Breakfast was a leisurely affair in Anvil Castle, and I hadn't entirely missed it. In the dining room, Lucar Umbranox lifted his head with something that might be mistaken for a smile, so long as I didn't look too closely. A tension in the jaw suggested he might be gritting his teeth. "Ah, our poor beleaguered hero arises."

"Your Grace." I swept a bow, studiously ignoring Millona's expression. Her lips were rolled inwards, in an attempt to stop herself from smiling. "It seems I must once again thank you for your generous hospitality."

"I'm not sure I've ever met anyone quite so unlucky as you, Corvus. To be attacked by bandits once is unfortunate, but twice..." He paused, still smiling, while his eyes told me he knew only too well what a lying shit I was. "I can't help wondering if the bandits of Anvil County aren't trying to tell you something."

"Leave poor Corvus alone, Papa." Millona darted a wicked little smile at me. "I think he must have struck his head in the attack. The poor man's feeling delicate."

 _Thank you. Thank you so much._

I shot her a glare and received a mischievous smile back. When her father wasn't looking I threw a bread roll at her.

The next hour I spent enduring some needling little sarcastic swipes from Lord Umbranox, along with a string of questions about the bandits who had attacked me: how many there were, and what exactly had happened, and why the guards he had sent to investigate – because naturally he had no choice but to take action when a visitor to Anvil County so noble as I should be attacked so viciously – couldn't seem to find any trace of the attack, and how utterly baffling that was.

Throughout my questioning, I winced and cringed and inwardly cursed Millona and Brey and most of all myself, and begged his pardon since my memory seemed to have been affected by the attack. The lingering threat of the hangover was edging closer. _Told you_ , it said. _Told you I hadn't forgotten you, you gutless little bastard._

And all the time, I was wondering how long I would have to wait until I could escape. Until I could run away yet again.

Two days passed. Two days of fixed smiles from Lucar Umbranox and threatening glares from his murderous-looking one-eyed steward, who had a face as pock-marked as a shore-side rock pitted with barnacle scars.

As if the gods wanted to punish me, storm-clouds swept in from the north and the resulting torrential rain was heavy enough to keep me penned inside. No pressure-releasing strolls along the docks (or to the Count's Arms). Not unless I wanted to get soaked to the skin within seconds of stepping out the door. So instead I wandered the castle, sat and talked with Millona, always aware of the hostile eyes that watched our every movement, and seemed, at every moment, to mock me for my cowardice and gutlessness.

Something had to break. Experience told me that something would be me.

~o~O~o~

Millona was in the library, curled in a chair by the fire, a book open in her lap. She lifted her head, a welcoming smile spreading across her face, which faltered a little at my expression. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm leaving."

And was it my imagination or was there a flash of disappointment in her eyes? She set her book face down on the table beside her. "So soon?" she said, carefully. "I feel as though I've barely seen you."

I crossed to the table without thinking, picked up the book and closed it properly. Usually she would have laughed at my ingrained habit, and mocked me gently, but now she only watched me, her eyes sad.

"I think I've already outstayed my welcome, don't you?" I said.

"You shouldn't take any notice of my father. He's really very–"

"Very fond of me. Yes, you've said that before." I hadn't believed it then either. "I shouldn't have come here in the first place, Millona. It was a mistake."

She looked away, stared down at her hands folded in her lap. Her face had gone very pale. "I see."

"Not that it's not been good to see you or anything," I said, quickly. "It's just..."

"Just that it was a mistake."

"Um..." I had the feeling that I'd fucked this up about as badly as it was possible to fuck something up. "I didn't mean it like that."

She glanced up at me, her eyes cold. "Then how did you mean it?"

An image of Elise flashed through my thoughts. It was a moment from Bravil, when she'd straddled the wall of the well, and cast a look of contempt back over her shoulder, only this time it wasn't directed at Brey but at me.

 _Stop being such a gutless worm_.

I swallowed. I couldn't bring myself to look at her so instead I stared at the fire like a coward. "I think you know, Millona. I shouldn't have come here because it hurts too much to see you and know..."

"Know what?"

"That nothing can ever come of it."

 _That you'll marry another man: the Count of Kvatch, perhaps, who's too old and serious for you, or Marus, who's almost as bad as I am, but doesn't come anywhere near to loving you the way I do and who'll make you miserable._

But then of course I would say that, wouldn't I? And I realise now with the benefit of hindsight that there's a certain bitter irony about my worrying about Marus making her unhappy when I have caused her more suffering than Marus ever would have.

Restless now, I paced to the window. Outside, the ceaseless rain continued, and I pressed my forehead against the glass.

"I care a very great deal for you, Millona."

 _Stop being so fucking evasive._

"I'm _in love_ with you, and I... it hurts like Oblivion that nothing can ever come of it–"

"Corvus..."

"Please don't make this worse." _Oh shit. Oh shitting hell, this is going to hurt_. "I lied to you, Millona. About everything. About who I am. About what I am. My name isn't Corvus, my family doesn't have business interests in Morrowind. I don't have a family..." A crack in my voice, and I broke off. I could no longer look at the rain-streaked glass, fogged up with my breath. There were too many memories written there, so I looked at her instead. "Almost everything I've ever told you has been a lie."

"Including telling me that you loved me?"

"Except for that. I do love you, and I'm not sure I can bear to stand by and watch you get betrothed to Marus fucking Goldwine."

She hesitated, then came towards me. "I knew you were lying, Corvus. I'm not an idiot. All those things you said about Morrowind, your insight into the Empire's activities there, how you come and go without warning..."

"What does that..." My brow knitted. "Wait, you think I'm a _spy_?" It was so absurd I burst out laughing, and the knife of despair twisted a little deeper. "Godsblood, no. You've got the wrong idea about me. I'm not a spy, I'm a _thief_. I'm a liar and a rogue and right now I wish to all the gods that I wasn't. If I could change everything, I would, but–" I broke off. She'd drawn away from me at this, her face pale.

"A thief," she repeated. Twin spots of red burned in her cheeks, and a sudden white-hot fury flashed in her eyes. She opened her mouth again as if to speak, but instead she turned without another word, and made for the door.

It slammed shut behind her.

I opened my mouth to call her back. Kept silent instead, while an ache knotted tight in my throat. I looked down at my hands, then back at the window, at the streaks of rain on the glass.

"That's that then," I murmured to my blurry reflection, and swallowed down the painful ache in my throat. "Went better than I expected."

~o~O~o~

The gods really must have been taking the piss because just when I was about to leave the rain stopped. The clouds parted like slashed gray silk to reveal a flash of brightly coloured lining beneath. In the courtyard I stopped and glared up at that gleaming blue.

 _You fuckers,_ I thought, gritting my teeth. I'd been looking forward to trudging back to the city in the rain, to feeling sorry for myself... longing in my wet shivering misery for the moment when I would step into the warmth of the Count's Arms, find my broken-hearted self a seat near the crackling fire and a generous glass of brandy, and start the process of letting my wounded heart heal.

I'd thought myself broken-hearted before. I'd had infatuations with women, squalls that flared up and died out as quickly as a summertide storm, and I was familiar with the heartache that followed some affairs (although not all, by any means). I knew all too well the despair and wallowing grief that's usually best dealt with by finding another woman or two (or, in particularly dire circumstances, three) to fuck as expediently as possible. But this... it felt different. It didn't feel real. Or perhaps the trouble was that it felt too real.

I was oddly numb and aching, as if the truth of it hadn't sank in yet. I'd only seen Millona truly angry only once before, that night that I'd met her for the first time, and that cold rage had been directed at Alessia Valga, not at me. It left me off-balance, as if I didn't know if I wanted to laugh or to burst into tears, to find Millona and beg for her forgiveness or to turn my back and never set foot in Anvil again.

In the gardens the rain had filled the air with the scent of wet earth and honeysuckle. I moved towards the love-seat hidden behind a box hedge, half-expecting to see Millona there, reading. It was empty, its only occupants snails, emerging after the rains, crawling up the side.

A sudden breeze ruffled the branches above my head, bringing a cluster of fat, freezing droplets of water showering down upon me, icy fingers on my neck. Just in case I wasn't quite miserable enough.

"Bollocks," I muttered quietly, and turned.

And she was there, watching me, a shawl wrapped around around her shoulders.

"I thought you were leaving." The anger had gone from her eyes; instead they were weary, reddened as if she'd been crying.

"I am."

"A _thief_ ," she said, bitterly, and drew the shawl tighter around her shoulders. "Is that why you befriended me then? To steal from me?"

"No! Gods, no. I've never taken a thing from you, Millona. Or from your father."

"Then why?"

"Because..." The words caught in my throat. "Because you seemed unhappy. And I thought I might be able to make you a little happier. That's all." I pushed my hair back, flushing. Her bitter expression had softened a little, but now she was looking at me as if I'd lost my mind. "I know it sounds stupid when I put it like that."

"No, it doesn't." She considered this, then grimaced. "Well, perhaps a little."

"I'm truly sorry. I should have told you the truth a long time ago. I wanted to, only the right moment never seemed to come along."

Or else I should have recognised the coming danger to both of us, and stayed away.

She moved past me, plucked a snail from the love seat and placed him in the wet flowerbeds, then sat down on the damp wood. "Do you remember the bonfire we had when you first came to Anvil? When we watched the sunset?"

"That night I killed the mudcrab? Of course I remember." I eyed the empty space on the love seat beside her, and decided it would be wiser to stay standing.

The silence stretched out. When she spoke, her voice was hesitant. "After my brother died, and my mother too... it was as if I'd been broken. And I tried to put the pieces back together, but I never could quite manage it. It always felt as if there was one piece missing..." She glanced at me. "I'm not sure if I'm making much sense..."

"Oh, you're making perfect sense," I said. I had plenty of missing pieces of my own, after all.

"And then there you were. And that night on the beach... It was a good night. The best night I'd had in a while, and for the first time it felt as if I had a chance to be whole again. That you might be able to take the missing piece I'd never been able to find and replace it." She hesitated for a long moment and then her hand unknotted. She placed it on the seat beside her. She wasn't looking at me, but the invitation was unmistakable.

 _Sit down._

I sat, careful to keep a respectable distance between us, and still her knuckles brushed against mine. Whether it was my doing or hers, I cannot say. My mouth had gone dry. Another shower of water-droplets burst around us as a breeze riffled the branches of the trees.

"I feel the same way," I said, as quietly as I could.

"And then you left. Repeatedly. And every time I thought, well, perhaps he has his reasons. Perhaps he's doing vitally important work for the Empire." She sighed, wearily, and turned her face towards me. This close I could see how swollen her eyes were, how hard she must have cried. How I had made her cry. "My father thinks me a romantic little fool. Sometimes I wonder if he isn't right."

"I was doing important work for the Empire. Thieving is vital for the economy..." I trailed off at the look she was giving me. I was being far too flippant, although a twitching at the corners of her mouth suggested she was trying not to smile. "I make no apologies for what I have been or what I've done, Millona. I never had much choice in the matter. And merchants rob people worse than I ever did. Only difference is they do it legally and no one blinks an eye."

"Your starving wolves of Vvardenfell?" she said, and now I was certain: she was fighting the urge to smile.

"Exactly."

"Where you've never been."

"I do read, you know. And I have Dunmer friends. I didn't pull everything out of my... out of my imagination. Anyway, I'm starting to think maybe I should go there after all. I think I'd like to travel a bit, see the world."

"So you are leaving. Again."

I lifted my gaze to hers, trying to ignore the leap of hope in my heart. "I'm tired of coming and going. It wasn't fair on either one of us. And for what it's worth, I think I'm sick to bloody death of being a thief. I'm done with that life."

"Corvus–"

It was no good: a spark of hope had caught, was now flaring bright as a candle-flame. "I would never have come here if... if I'd thought I was making things harder for you. Coming here was a mistake. I was drunk and stupid, and in fairness that friend of mine, the one who sent me here, he's a mage, so I was completely at his mercy–"

"Corvus!" She was almost laughing now, pressing her lips together to fight it.

"But I can't blame it on him. It was my fault, and you're right. I swear by the Nine, you'll never see me again..."

"I thought you didn't care for the Nine."

"I don't, but you do."

She placed her hand on mine and our fingers entwined. "And if I said don't want you to go? What would you say then?"

I glanced down at our linked hands, then met her gaze. "I'd say you're not thinking clearly, and that your father may have been right about you being a romantic fool, and that asking me to stay would be a bad idea."

"Why would it be a bad idea?"

"Because I might listen to you. And then I'm not sure you'd ever be able to get rid of me."

 _Fuck it_. I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it, not the back, but the warm hollow of her palm, where the sweet, herby scent of lemon thyme lingered on her skin.

"I don't want you to go, Corvus."

"Millona–"

"Don't go. Not yet." There were tears in her eyes, and an edge to her voice I'd never heard before. It threw me. I'd never seen her openly cry before, not even when she'd visited her family vault to lay down flowers and mourn her brother. Her voice was as slight and small as a child's. It hadn't occurred to me to think I might not be the only person getting my heart broken here. "If nothing else," she continued, her voice a little harder, "I think you owe me an explanation, don't you?"

 _Shit_. I hesitated, staring at her, thinking all it would take would be to shove myself up. A couple of strides and I would be out of sight. Change my name, don a new identity and never return to Anvil again. That was the safest thing to do. The wisest thing to do. And probably, in hindsight, it would have been the kindest thing to do.

There is a part of me that wishes I had taken that path, that I'd walked away from her and never looked back, since no doubt there would have been a great deal less pain all round. And still, if I was given that choice again, I doubt there's a force on Mundus or in Oblivion that could have made me do it.

Of all people, I could never have said 'no' to her.

~o~O~o~

I told her everything. More or less. There was a great deal I held back, out of fear and cowardice and shame. I told her that I'd been born poor, that I couldn't remember my parents, that I'd fallen into the life of a thief because living in Bravil it had seemed the only way to survive.

Mainly because it had been.

The darkness, the shadows, and most of all the Fox, I left out. I wish to all the gods I hadn't.

~o~O~o~

"Is your real name Jack?" she asked quietly.

I glanced at her. "It's not, as it happens, but how did you–"

"Your Altmer friend called you Jack that night."

"And you knew all this time?"

She didn't answer, only raised her shoulders.

"It's not my real name. It's just what people call me. Corvus is as much my real name as Jack is." I nipped at my lower lip with my teeth. "More so these days in fact, since it's what you call me."

She let out a startled breath, cheeks flushing pink.

I closed my eyes, my heart picking up the pace. The candle-flame, battered by winds with the force of a thunderstorm, somehow had kept burning. "Don't marry Marus Goldwine."

"I'm sorry?"

 _Shit. Should have kept my bloody mouth shut._ I scrambled to explain. "It's just... Marus... I know he's a friend of mine, sort of, and he's a thoroughly decent chap in a lot of ways, but he'd make you miserable–"

She shot a look my way. "I have no intention of marrying anyone. Unless it's you."

And for a moment, it felt like my heart had stopped. That I was hallucinating. "That isn't funny."

The flush on her cheeks deepened. "Is it really such a terrible idea?"

"For you it is."

"But not for you?"

My mouth hung open. I felt the sensation of being lost, of being tricked and manipulated, the butt of a cruel joke, and Millona was the last person I would have expected it of. "This really isn't funny. You know you can't marry me."

"Are you married already?"

"Now you're just being ridiculous. You can't marry me because I'm a thief and a liar."

"And I thought you were going to give all of that up. Were you lying?"

"Of course not. I meant it with all my heart. But–"

"Enough." She placed her hand on my cheek. "You've had your say, now I think it's time for me to say mine. You call yourself a liar and a rogue, while I see a decent, kind, compassionate man who would make a fine count, even if you are a... a thief.." And as she spoke, the strength in her voice slipping away, a catch I her voice. "Gods, I wish you hadn't told me."

"I know. I'm sorry. But I'd make a terrible count."

"Ah, but you've already admitted you're a liar. I wish you hadn't told me because I hate the thought of lying to my father."

"You know, for someone who claims to hate lying to her father, you seem to do it an awful lot."

"And it's nearly always your fault. You're a terrible influence."

"The very worst." I felt the temptation to slip my arm around her back, which I resisted. "I don't want you to lie to your father."

"I'm not sure I've got any choice. Because I love you too, Corvus, and I think if my father knew the truth about who you were, he wouldn't want to give us his blessing."

"His..." I swallowed, looked away. "Millona, are you saying you'd marry me if I asked you to?"

She leaned into me. "Why don't you ask me and find out?"

"You know there's a danger I might call your bluff, right?"

"Corvus!"

"I haven't got a ring."

"Divines have mercy, you're impossible!" She glanced around, plucked a blade of grass and held it out to me. "Here."

"You're really not leaving me any option, are you?"

"Well, if you really don't want to–" And she started to get up. I grabbed her skirt, and pulled her back down, slipped onto one knee on the wet stones.

"Fine, I'm calling your bluff," I said. "Hold out your hand."

She did, and I tied the blade of grass around her finger. "Millona, will you– Bugger, it's broken."

She burst out laughing.

 _Fuck the ring_ , I thought and caught hold of her wrist, bringing her hand up to my lips again. "Marry me, Millona. I can't bear the thought of you marrying anyone else either."

Her eyes widened. "You–"

" _And_ I love you." My voice softened, turning serious. "I'm still not altogether convinced that this isn't an elaborate practical joke, but you're the other half of my heart, and I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you." And I'd had plenty of opportunities. "So there. You wanted me to ask and I've asked. Now this is the moment you laugh in my face."

"I would have thought you'd at least take a _proposal_ seriously, but clearly–"

"And _I_ can't help but notice you haven't actually said yes."

In reply, she kissed me. Slow and cautious at first, her hand moving up to cup my cheek. It wasn't quite as chaste and innocent as the kiss in the caverns, but it wasn't far off. I reached up, slid my hand over the nape of her neck, and gently, carefully, parted my lips. There was the cautious uncertain touch of her tongue to mine, and then she broke away, her cheeks colouring a deep pink. She touched her fingers to her lips, smiling.

"Still not technically an answer." My heart seemed to be speeding ahead of me like a runaway horse, and I was chasing as fast as I could, unable to catch up. "Perhaps there's a legal precedent I'm unaware of, but–"

"Yes, damn you," She laughed at me, eyes bright. "Yes, I'll marry you."

"Either I'm still drunk or I'm dreaming. Maybe a little of both." We kissed again, and this time I was the one who broke it off with a grin that could only be described as idiotic as I cupped her cheeks. "Just to be clear, you want to marry me because you love me."

There were more kisses. Quite a few of them in fact, and when Qileel rounded the corner of the box hedge, she found Millona quickly settling back in the love seat, while I coughed and pretended to be thoroughly caught up in the stately progress of another snail.

A more suspicious-looking couple you'd be unlikely to see, especially when we caught each other's gaze and burst out laughing.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: As always, thank you to Tafferling for betaing, and to you for reading. Comments are always appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Four**

" _The poets are right. There is something life-changing about being in love," said Kepkajna gra-Minfang, sometimes called the Wraith. "I haven't wanted to rob anyone or anything in weeks. Why, the other day, I saw the door wide open at a wealthy merchant's house, but my mind was fully occupied with what I should wear on my wedding day."_

 _"You have been out of the right society for very long now," frowned her friend Khargol approvingly. "You never told me what happened to your first husband, you know, the one the shaman gave you?"_

 _"Torn apart by ash ghouls," smiled Kepkajna dreamily. "It was rather saddish. But I know nothing like that would happen to Wodworg. No life of adventure for him. He's practically an Imperial. In fact, he is one. Did I tell you how we met?"_

 _"Hundreds of times," grumbled Khargol, reaching for his flagon. "He was your jailer, and he refused you food until you promised to marry him_."

– _The Wraith's Wedding Dowry_

There's always a catch.

"Can't we just elope to Skyrim? Or Atmora – it's further away."

Millona laughed, although the truth was I hadn't been entirely joking. She tucked her arm through mine, and guided me along the corridor. I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. The dream that had been dangled in front of me was about to be snatched away, and it seemed like a kind of heartless torture, a joke on me played by the gods. "We can't wait any longer, Corvus. You need to face my father at some point. Surely you're not still afraid of him. You know he's very fond of you."

"Are we really talking about the same man?"

Millona took pity on me, rising on tiptoes for a kiss."He will give us his blessing, I promise."

I rested my forehead against hers, gloomily. "He'd have to be mad to let you marry me."

"'Let me'?" She pulled away, her voice sharpening. "Allow me to be clear, Corvus, the decision to wed is mine and mine alone. My father would never force me to marry against my will, or prevent me from marrying someone I truly loved. He'd want me to marry for love, as he did my mother."

Well honestly. That's Colovian women for you.

~o~O~o~

The steward announced me at the doorway of Count Umbranox's private study with his usual borderline murderous expression. "Corvus Alviarus, Your Grace."

"Capital." Lucar Umbranox lifted his head to fix me with a smile that didn't touch his eyes. "And to what do I owe this honour?"

 _Fuck. Fuck fucking fuck_. I stood frozen in the doorway, the steward harumphing because he was stuck behind me, unable to re-enter the room without shoving me out of the way, which he seemed sorely tempted to do. He was so close behind me he could have slipped a dagger between my ribs. Something else which I suspect he was sorely tempted to do.

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Worked my tongue around the arid crevices of my teeth in the hope that would help me to find my voice. It didn't. "It... I... um..."

"Please. Do take a seat." The count made a sweeping gesture towards the chair. His tone suggested he would far rather I threw myself out of the window.

I sat instead.

He's really very fond of you, Millona had told me. I loved her as dearly as it was possible to love another living soul, but she was wrong about this. Before my petrified brain could catch up with my heart and my mouth and persuade them that jumping out of the window might be the preferable option, I spoke. "It's regarding Millona, My Lord."

And once those words had been spoken there was never going to be any going back.

A portcullis slammed down behind me, so fierce I felt the breeze on the back of my neck. Or perhaps it was just the steward's rancid breath. The count's smile curdled. It was hard to meet his eyes so I concentrated on the twitching muscle above his left eyebrow, counted five little spasms before I could bring myself to speak again.

"I've asked her to do me the honour of becoming my wife."

 _Oh Gods. Oh Gods, I'm a dead man._

There was silence for a long time. Count Umbranox set his quill down on the stand very, very carefully, and steepled his fingers. "So," he said, "you've finally decided to grow a pair of balls. I did wonder how long it would take. May I ask when this happy event took place?"

"Loredas, My Lord, but–"

"Ah. So it took you four days to come to me. Apparently the exact location still managed to elude you. I'm sure I could arrange for Voric here to draw you a rudimentary map should you need assistance?"

 _It's okay. It's fine._ Sarcasm was a good sign. He might be a bastard, but he was a predictable bastard. And a remarkable one: I'd never met a man who was able to glare through a smile before.

"I wish I could say this had come as something as a surprise," he continued. "I was, of course, aware my daughter had developed something of a fondness for you. In most situations I trust her judgement, although I'm afraid to say her reasoning in this matter continues to elude me."

I opened my mouth to speak. Shut it again.

"On the surface, Corvus, you may appear to be a foolish, foppish, untrustworthy wastrel, but from the evidence of my daughter's preference for you, as baffling and incomprehensible as it may be... " He pinched the bridge of his nose and spoke through gritted teeth, as if what he was about to say pained him deeply. "I can only conclude that I may have judged you unfairly, and that you must have hidden depths."

"Um... thank you, My Lord?"

His forefinger beat out a brief little tattoo on the desk. "As it happens, I have a friend with connections in Morrowind. I asked him to look into you when it first became clear Millona was growing attached. I do hope you won't take offence. I'd do the same with any other man courting my daughter. You understand, of course?"

"Of course, My Lord."

"And from the work I hear you've done in Balmora it certainly seems as though you're far more competent than I gave you credit for. So." He gestured to the steward, who brought over a bottle of brandy and two glasses, before returning to his lurking position close behind my chair. Lucar Umbranox uncapped the bottle, and poured us each a glass. His glare, against all the odds, had softened a little. "I've been to Morrowind, of course, but it was always a disappointment that I never had the chance to see Vvardenfell for myself. Vivec City and that place they built beneath the carapace of a mud crab... uh..."

"Ald'ruhn?"

"Ah yes, that's it. A fascinating people and culture, the Dunmer. All of them crazy as harbour rats, mind you." He slid the glass of brandy across to me. An itching feeling of something not right niggled at me. I wished he'd be sarcastic again; his almost-friendly man-to-man demeanour was setting me on edge. The brandy smelled too sickly sweet, and this was a rare thing indeed, me too nervous to drink.

He waved his hand at me. "Go on, drink up. It's not as if it's poisoned, what? Ha ha."

I dutifully echoed his laugh, and stared down at the amber liquid. He watched intently, waiting for me to drink. He had served himself from the same bottle, and had his own glass cupped in his hand, but I couldn't remember if he had taken a sip yet.

My hand tightened around the glass. _Fuck it_ , I thought. If he wanted me dead I'd wind up dead, one way or another. And I knocked it back. There was no bitter taint, nothing but the sweet taste of the brandy, and Lord Umbranox's smile widened before he finally took a sip from his own glass.

 _Bastard's just screwing with you._

"I know I may seem like a difficult man at times, Corvus. Understand, I only wish to protect my daughter."

"I want the same thing, My Lord. I care very deeply for Millona."

"Oh, I'm sure. No man who met her could fail to fall in love with her." His gaze flicked to me. "And at least you've eschewed those ridiculous clothes."

"I've found myself growing attached to the Colovian style of dress, My Lord." No question it was more comfortable. And it took me a damn sight less time to get dressed in the mornings.

"And thank the Gods for that. I won't say it doesn't come as a relief. We could hardly have a count prancing around Castle Anvil in frips and fusteries like a damned ninny. That might fly in Cheydinhal, but never in Anvil." He tilted the bottle of brandy towards me. "Another?"

"Please."

"You know, it is a funny thing, though," he said as he poured. "A minor puzzle that friend of mine brought up. A slight mix-up, it seems. I told him it hardly signified, but you know the sort, I'm sure, can't stop worrying and poking at a loose thread until he's got half the garment unravelled. A damned nuisance. I told him to let it be, that I was quite satisfied, but he just wouldn't let the matter rest..."

"My Lord?"

The steward's tread was surprisingly quiet for such a heavyset man. I hadn't heard him move from his spot behind my chair, but the sound I did hear sent threads of ice through my veins: a key turning in the lock.

"The funny thing is," the Count continued, and the smile was gone, the humour in his eyes was gone. Nothing but frost remained. "It's baffling really. He couldn't find any trace of you older than six years. Now isn't that odd?"

 _Oh. Fuck_. "Perhaps... in Mournhold?"

"He paid a visit to Mournhold too. Very thorough, my friend."

"I can't think why, My Lord... A mistake, perhaps?"

"A mistake. Now, that's exactly what I said. That it had to be a mistake, either on the side of the Dunmer, or my friend. Although he's not the sort of man who makes mistakes as I'm sure you'd realise if you met him." The jaws of a steel trap clamped tight around me. "Or indeed if you'd ever been to Balmora in your life."

 _Oh gods, I'm a dead man_. The steward was behind me again, and I heard the whisper-soft sound of a blade being drawn. If I got up, if I tried to move at all, my throat would be cut before I was even halfway to my feet.

"So," Lord Umbranox continued, and he was smiling again, the smile of a fox regarding a rabbit caught in a snare. "Perhaps you could start by telling me exactly who the fuck you are."

~o~O~o~

I told him. Not that I had much choice in the matter, and not that it would make much difference either way. Come the morning, the tides would be drawing my perforated corpse out towards the Summerset Isles. I'd always heard it was a nice place to visit, but I suspected I wouldn't enjoy it quite so much as mudcrab bait.

"So," he said, when I'd finished and sank back in my chair with my eyes closed. "You're a thief."

"I was a thief. I'm not any more. I promised Millona I'd leave that life behind."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

My eyes snapped open. "I don't give a fuck whether you believe it or not. Millona believes me."

"Millona believes a lot of things."

"You say you have faith in your daughter?" I snapped. He glared at me, eyes unreadable. "Then have faith in her. I've told Millona everything." _More or less._ "And for reasons which I assure you, I find as baffling as I'm sure you do, she still wants to marry me."

"And if I were to ask Millona this? She would confirm it?"

"I... Well, I suppose so. She might... not exactly..."

"Corvus, am I right in thinking you're encouraged my daughter to lie to me? Congratulations, despite all the odds you've managed to endear yourself to–"

"I love her." My unexpected outburst took me by surprise as well as him. "I didn't fucking ask for this. You think I want to be here, listening to your tedious sarcastic swipes and knowing that nothing I say will make a damn bit of difference because you're still going to have your murderous lackey slit my throat no matter what I say? I love her—"

"I _know_." He leaned forward. "The only reason you're still capable of walking at the moment is because I know you're not lying, and for reasons I still can't fathom she–"

"Oh, stop with the fucking sarcasm! I wish you had poisoned the godsdamned brandy if it meant I wouldn't have to listen to it. You don't like me. You've never liked me. I get the fucking message." I rose to my feet. Caught off guard, the steward took a stumbling step back, looking a little hurt at having been called a murderous lackey. I glanced at him, calculating my odds. They weren't great so I turned on Lucar Umbranox instead. "Are we finished here? Forgive me, My Lord, I have to tell Millona she was mistaken about her father's kind heart."

I'd taken him by surprise too: there was a startled look in his eyes. The steward moved behind me, and the count gave a twitch of his fingers, staying him. "Very well, Corvus. No more sarcasm." He gestured to the chair. "Sit back down, if you please. And you're right, by the way. I don't like you."

"Glad we got that straight," I said, glancing again at the steward. It seemed I had little choice, so I took my seat again. "I always did wonder."

"I went down to the cave, you know. I saw what you did."

"You mean when I saved Millona's life."

"And your own life too. Let's not forget that little detail. She might never had ridden out there if it hadn't been for you."

"You underestimate your daughter, My Lord."

"Yes, I do, don't I? Not for the first time. I saw what was left of the bandits. Even the woman amongst their number–"

"Actually that was Millona. I didn't–"

"Would it have stopped you?"

"No." My hands tightened into fists. "No, I'd have killed her too if I'd had to." If I'd been in the position to.

"You butchered them without mercy. I'll bet you didn't even blink. Tell me something, boy. If it came to a straight choice between Millona's life and protecting the people of Anvil, which would you choose?"

There was only ever one answer I could give and I gave it coldly, still angry. "Millona. Without question. Every time."

"Even though it would almost certainly be against her wishes? My daughter values duty above her own life, and certainly above yours."

I couldn't answer. Desperate to drop his gaze, I forced myself to hold it instead.

"I suspected as much." He poured me another brandy. Snapped, " _Drink it_ ," when I hesitated. "A word of advice though, boy," he said as I swallowed it down. "Never tell Millona that. She wouldn't thank you for it. My daughter is an Umbranox through and through. First and foremost, her duty is to the city of Anvil and to its people. I'm sure she does love you. Perhaps she even believes that she loves you just as much as you love her, but don't ever make the mistake of thinking you come before Anvil in her heart. If she had to sacrifice herself for her people, she would do it in the blink of an eye." He leaned forward, intent on me. "The question is, Corvus, would you let her?"

"I'd... Well, I'd try to respect her wishes..."

"And we're back to the lies again. Are you congenitally incapable of giving a straight answer?"

I clenched my jaw. "I'd do everything in my power to save her life."

"Even if it meant abandoning Anvil? Even if it meant her hating you for the rest of her life and casting you off? Because that's what it would mean. If you came between Millona and her duty to Anvil, that's something she could never forgive you for."

"But she'd be alive. I could live with her hating me so long as she was alive."

He was silent for a moment, studying me, his face impassive. I had the feeling he was toying with me, that no matter what I'd said, he had already made up his mind. And given how close the steward was standing behind me, his decision wouldn't be one I'd like. I braced myself for the kiss of the blade, offered up a small prayer to whatever gods might happen to be listening that I wouldn't humiliate myself by pissing myself or voiding my bowels when the moment came.

"You really are a bastard aren't you?" he said finally, and although he paused as if waiting for an answer I wisely decided silence was the best option. "That's what Millona needs. Not some prancing fop like the Goldwine boy, who'd only make her miserable in the long run. So..." He steepled his fingers, and made a face, as if what he was about to say was causing him actual pain. In hindsight, I suspect it probably was. "I give you permission to marry my daughter."

I'd misheard. I had to have misheard. "I... I beg your pardon?"

"I will allow you to marry my daughter. And I suggest you open your fucking ears, boy, because I don't think I could bring myself to say it a third time."

"No, I... um..." Dizzy, I felt the urge to lean forwards and put my head between my legs. An involuntary smile crossed my face. "You're serious? You're giving us your blessing?"

His eyes hardened. "No. I'm giving you my permission. There's no force on Mundus strong enough to make me bless this godsforsaken union, no matter how much faith I have in my daughter. My permission."

 _Good enough for me_. I bolted to my feet, afraid he might change his mind. "Thank you, My Lord. I suppose I should, um... go and tell Millona the good news. Thank you, truly, I can't tell you how happy you've made–"

His fingers twitched. Behind me, the steward shifted, and a fist of terror uncurled in my chest, along with the understanding, pure and savage, that he'd never had any intention of allowing me to marry Millona, that this had all been a trick, a way of fucking with me before he had the steward slit my throat and dump me in the sea after all. He might have called me a bastard, but he was the biggest bastard of them all. I swung towards the steward, bringing my arms up. But I had no weapon, no way of defending myself, and the steward–

And the steward opened the door, smirking. He gestured for me to leave with a flourish of his hand. I stared at him, my heart racing.

"And that, I believe," Lord Umbranox said softly, "would be your cue to leave."

" _You_ –!" I swung towards him, clenching my fists in involuntary rage. Inside me the voice of reason was screaming at the top of its lungs, _Shut up! Shut up! Get the fuck out while you still can!_

For once I listened.

~o~O~o~

The horse, a silvery gray the colour of mist, ducked its head towards my outstretched palm. I tried not to flinch, but it only nipped the apple slices off my hand gently. "There's a good girl," I murmured, stroking its neck. "You're not so fierce, are you?"

The horse, which had the unnerving name of Phantom, had the kind of gentle, patient nature that would have been more suited to ferrying about small children. Despite all the odds, and my instinctive distrust of animals powerful enough to stove in my skull with a single blow, I'd grown rather fond of it. Even if only because it had been a gift from Millona. It was also a stark reminder that, other than my love and my protection, I had little of value to offer, no matter how often she might tell me otherwise. Hard not to see myself in a harsher light.

At the sound of footsteps behind me, I grinned, sliding my hand down the velvety nap of the horse's neck, waiting until an arm slipped around my back. I felt the lightest kiss against my cheek, the warmth of her breath on my skin.

"We might make a horseman of you yet," Millona said. The horse nuzzled at me for more treats, but it was out of luck, since I was now far more interested in nuzzling my betrothed in search of treats of my own. The scent of horse enveloped us, and underneath lingered the soft smell of her skin. It never failed to make me dizzy; I could get drunk on the scent of her. I lowered my head and kissed the tender skin beneath her ear. She shivered, and pressed closer to me. _Gods_ , I thought, as her fingers slid over the back of my neck, _if we could only–_

My horse whickered and at the sound of approaching footsteps we broke apart. Millona flushed deeper, while I grinned like a lovesick idiot. The groom who had entered the stables was clearly fighting the urge to smirk at his future countess as if she were a chambermaid he'd caught having a tumble in the hay with the stableboy.

Which actually–

 _Shit. Corvus, concentrate._

He deliberately turned on his heel and walked out, pretending he'd forgotten something in the least convincing manner possible. I appreciated the sentiment, although it wouldn't do me any good. I'd made an ill-advised vow to hold off from ravishing her until we were married. It had seemed the decent and honourable thing to do at the time, and I had no desire to antagonise the count further by taking advantage of the unwritten list of privileges due a betrothed man, but I was regretting the vow more and more with each passing day.

"You know, you really are beautiful when you blush," I murmured in her ear.

"And you really are wicked." She set her hand on my chest and pushed me away. "What on Mundus was my father thinking? I still can't believe he said yes."

"Then why do I remember you telling me the exact opposite?"

"I could hardly have told you the truth, could I? You wouldn't have gone."

"You're teasing me."

Her eyebrows flashed upwards, a wicked glint in her eyes. "Am I?"

I kissed her. A little harder. A little fiercer. And she responded in kind, while I contemplated how wonderfully welcoming the bales of hay looked. Deceptively so: they'd be far too prickly.

She broke off the kiss and I wrapped my arms around her, trying not to think too hard about the skin beneath the fabric of her dress. "I am," she admitted into my chest. "A little. I suspected he might give you a difficult time, but I never truly thought he'd withhold his permission entirely. He knows..." Her gaze glanced away from my own and her cheeks coloured. "He knows how I feel about you."

 _A difficult time_ , I thought, and withheld a snort. She'd been right enough about that. Still, the last person I wanted to think about when I was holding Millona in my arms was Lucar fucking Umbranox, and I might have hoped she'd feel the same way.

"I do wish you weren't going," Millona said. "I'll miss you."

"I know. But there are matters in the city I have to attend to." I hesitated, wondering how much of the truth I should tell her. "People I need to say goodbye to."

"Thieves?"

"Millona..." I wrapped my arms around her. "Thieves or not, they're good people. Well... _some_ of them are good people. Some of the time. There's no doubt that plenty of them are bastards." A few strands of hair had escaped from her plait, and I brushed them back behind her ear. "But bastards or not they helped me when I needed them. I'll make a clean break with that life, I swear it, my love. I won't so much as steal an apple, but I do need to say goodbye."

"I know, and I believe you, I do." She twisted in my arms. "But, Corvus, why travel by horse? Speak to Hannibal Traven. The Mages' Guild could have you there and back in a day."

"It's too conspicuous. I don't want to draw attention to myself." And to be honest, the thought of allowing myself to be teleported halfway across Cyrodiil again made me physically sick. I'd sworn I would never travel that way again if I could help it, and I still didn't altogether trust that I wouldn't arrive with my insides on the outside. "Besides, I'll never make much of a horseman if I never ride, will I?"

She rested her head against my chest. "I know. But it would be so much faster."

I placed a kiss on the parting of her hair. "I'll be back before you know it, my love, I swear it."

~o~O~o~

I'd suspected long before I'd even left Anvil that Lucar Umbranox would set someone to watch me, and I'd scarce passed the Brina Cross Inn on the Gold Road, before I knew for certain. My escort was a wiry ranger-type, sharp-faced, with more than a couple of branches of Bosmer grafted onto his family tree. He kept well back, but I was too good at this game to be fooled.

Actually I was glad of the company. I'd dressed in simple unflashy clothes, laced leather breeches and a plain linen shirt, but there was no hiding that my horse was an expensive one, and alone I made an easy target. Although I had considered he might be planning on killing me himself, after a few stretches of quiet deserted road, I began to relax.

Most likely his only task was to spy on me, to report back to Lord Umbranox my movements in the city, and since I had no intention of misbehaving – although this does rather depend on your interpretation of 'misbehaving' of course – I was glad of the company on the wet lonely road to the Imperial City.

By the time I stopped in at an inn between Kvatch and Skingrad, the sun was languishing on the horizon, the murky orange sky clouded with thunderheads, and the rain lashing at my face. Inside the inn was warm and cosy, the shelves behind the bar crowded with Kvatchian beer, and the half-sunken room filled with the mingled scent of pipe-smoke and the mulled cider kept warm over the fire. The rain drummed its ceaseless tattoo against the roof as I shed my cloak, wiping my hand over my sodden hair. A few of the patrons glanced up as I dripped my way down the stairs.

"Some night," the innkeeper said. He was a Nord, solid and heavy-browed. "Storm's settling in."

"Aye," I agreed. "Looks like a big one too."

He snorted, wiping down the bar. "This? This is nothing, lad. Passing shower, this." His words were punctuated with a deafening thunderclap, the crack of the world splitting open, followed by Alduin's lingering roar. The innkeeper nodded as if to say, 'See? Nothing.' "Nowt but a summer storm. You milk-sop Imperials don't know you're fucking born."

" _Gunnar_." A Nord woman by the fire shook her head at him, then winked at me. I smiled back out of ingrained instinct, the lessons of my early adulthood I'd learned a little too well. "Don't mind my brother. He just likes to run his mouth. A drink, milord?"

"The mulled cider smells good. I'll take one. And take one for yourselves as well."

Gunnar bared his teeth at me. "I had a feeling you were the generous sort." As his sister – and don't think I hadn't noticed how quick she'd been to make the relationship between them clear – moved to pour me out a bowl of hot cider, he leaned towards me, stabbing his finger at the bar. "I'm right about the storm though, lad. This, this is nothing. You should see the storms that rise up off the Sea of Ghosts. The spirits of the dead ride the winds and call down lightning from the sky."

"Please," I said, enjoying myself now. "You think I've never been north past Bruma? The sea's half-fucking frozen up that way." I nodded my thanks to his sister as she set the bowl of cider in front of me. She gave me a friendly smile that carried the hint that it could always get friendlier. "I'm from Anvil. You've never seen a storm until you've been in Anvil in Sun's Dusk, and seen the waves near thirty feet high that surge into the harbour and crush the ships to matchsticks. They rise up so high men on the castle walls are in danger of being swept out to sea. Deposited the rotting carcass of a whale right up on top of the castle once."

The Nord snorted. "I think you've tracked some horse-shit in with you, my friend."

"Yeah, but I don't think it's covering up the smell of the bullshit that was already in here." I glanced at the door to the inn, then shot his sister a speculative glance. When she caught me looking with a quirk of her eyebrow, I beckoned to her and ordered another mulled cider.

~o~O~o~

Outside, my escort was looking thoroughly miserable, pressed against the side of the stable in an attempt to shelter from the driving rain. The sound of the storm concealed my approach, and he jumped guiltily when he realised I was there, my hands wrapped around the bowl of cider.

"I brought you a drink," I said. "Had a feeling you might appreciate something hot."

He gave me a guilty look, then glanced over his shoulder as if I couldn't possibly be talking to him. "I... I don't know what you mean, sir. I work here in the stables..."

"Funny that, since I could have sworn you'd followed me all the way from Anvil."

"Godsdamn." He made a disgusted sound under his breath. "I _knew_ you'd spotted me."

"Do you want your drink or not?"

He hesitated, gaze shifting to the steaming bowl in my hands. "I really shouldn't..."

I shrugged. "Well, I'm happy to drink it if you don't want it. Better hurry up and decide. It's getting colder by the minute, and I'm fucked if I'm going to let it go to waste."

He licked his lips, shivering, then took the bowl from me, glancing down at the ground in embarrassment and shame. Just a young man really, freezing his backside off on a pointless quest, spying on a bastard for an even bigger bastard. The poor hapless sod.

"You know if I were you," I said, "I wouldn't trust me as far as you could throw me. I'm exactly the sort of sneaky bugger who'd climb out the back window when you weren't looking."

"You are, are you." He eyed me, pressing his lips together. "Suppose I shouldn't really let you out of my sight, should I?"

"I wouldn't if I were you. And I could be getting up to all sorts in there. The innkeep's sister's giving me the eye. How are you going to report that to the count if you can't see me, eh?"

"Fair point. And you do look like a sneaky bastard, right enough."

Inside, and after several rounds of mulled cider, I ascertained that it had indeed been the count that had sent him, and that that he definitely did not have orders to kill me, and probably wouldn't let bandits butcher me if he could at all help it.

Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, came as something of a relief.

~o~O~o~

As much as I hadn't wanted to draw attention to myself or people asking inconvenient questions about why the future husband of the heir to the seat of Anvil would want to correspond with known thief – I'd sent a courier on ahead with news of my impending arrival. Armande was in the King & Queen Tavern waiting for me. He got up from the table so fast he knocked his chair to the ground, and pulled me into a crushing bear hug. "Godsdamn, you jammy bastard."

And although up until that moment I'd been toying with presenting myself as staid and modest, the very image of a future Count of Anvil (although perhaps not quite so much of a cunt as my father-in-law-to-be), that illusion was never going to last, no matter how carefully I cultivated it.

I grinned. "I fucking _know_. Can you believe it? Me?"

"Of all the sneaky arseholes it could have happened to, I think you're the one that least surprises me," Armande said. He shook his head, grinning. "I burst out laughing when I read your letter. I had to get Jobasha to read it to me, 'cause I wasn't sure I'd read it right at first. Your handwriting's fucking dreadful. Drink to celebrate?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

A couple of drinks down and back out on the streets, I roughed up my hair. I'd shed the Colovian trappings and taken on a Nibenese accent again, which I found oddly tricky. I'd been honing the Colovian accent for so long it felt like second nature, and I kept slipping back into it inadvertently.

Armande glanced around. "You know we've got a follower?"

"Oh yeah. That's Rory. Nice chap. Very conscientious. We stopped in an inn on the way from Anvil, and he made sure to take the innkeep's sister to bed to make sure I wouldn't."

"A noble sacrifice indeed."

"Ain't it, though? He's been set to dog my heels. Turns out my delightful soon-to-be father-in-law doesn't trust me."

"And after all those lies you told him? What a total bastard. Silver linings, though, at least he has some brains. Although oddly he's still letting you marry his daughter."

"Arsehole." I gave him a good-natured jab with my elbow. "And don't worry. we'll lose him easily enough."

"I don't know. He looks pretty sharp. And you're getting fat and lazy."

"You want to find out exactly how fat and lazy I am? I may not be a thief any more but that doesn't mean I'm entirely ready to hang up my dagger."

"Right. The honorary Colovian. Tell me something, does your future father-in-law know you were probably born in Nibenay?"

I shuddered. "No, and by the grace of the gods he'll never find out. If he so much as suspected..." I drew my finger across my throat.

"He'd be that angry?"

"Gods, no, he'd be thrilled. It'd mean he'd finally have an excuse to quietly get me out of the way. Hence..." I gestured down the street towards my shadow. "Anyway, we don't know for certain that I'm not Colovian."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Millona knows. That's all I give a damn about."

"You really told her everything?"

I nodded, then grimaced. "Well, more or less."

"Gods, you have got it bad."

"Yeah." The idiotic grin that had never been too far from my face the last few weeks began to creep back. How could I have been so lucky? Perhaps it was the gods after all, the gods I'd always considered worse than useless, because while they could choose to interfere in the lives of men, they almost never did. And exactly what was the good of gods as distant and impassive as marble statues? Now though, I wasn't so sure. Maybe someone was smiling on me. Or maybe it was just the fabled luck of a thief: the arrow shot that never should have come off, the dice falling snake eyes for the sixth time in a row. A woman so far out of my reach she might have been a shooting star agreeing to be my wife.

Armande glanced at my grin and rolled his eyes. "Fuck this for a lark, let's lose the tail."

We crashed a wedding party in a private room of an inn in the Temple district. Easy enough to slip in, since they were already well-lubricated by drink, and at the first suspicious glance from the father of the bride, I stuck two hundred Septims behind the bar, earning myself a resounding cheer. Coin and alcohol – there aren't many problems in this world that can't be solved by one or the other, or in the direst of cases both.

We stayed there for a while, leaning against the bar, basking in the clear joy of the newly bonded couple. The girl's unbound blonde hair was wreathed with wild flowers, and the young man was freshly shaven and nervous, perhaps just a little bit too drunk, but clearly happy. His bride was across the room chattering with two girls who looked so like her they had to be sisters. He kept stealing glances at her and flinching at one of the most heart-freezing sounds a young man can imagine – ringing peals of feminine laughter directed at him.

That would soon be me.

And suddenly I didn't want to be there any more, and I'm not just talking about the private room of an inn, being jostled by strangers. It was the city itself, which seemed suddenly strange to me, too busy, too crowded. I longed to be back in Anvil, walking its peaceful streets, with the smell of salt on the breeze, and the cries of gulls overhead. And most of all I wanted to be with Millona. I missed with a sharp pang of homesickness the walks we would take along the harbour, her hand tucked into mine. I hadn't even been away two days, but already the distance between us felt like a physical pain, a knot of regret in my chest.

I stirred, smiling at the approach of the groom. "A drink, my friend?"

He gave me a twitchy smile, the edgy look of a man who's desperately trying to remember the name of the person he's talking to. "That's very kind. Um... I beg your pardon, though. I...I'm afraid I can't seem to place..."

"We've never met before," I told him, and gestured to Armande. "We're business associates of your uncle."

Relief flooded his face. "Oh, thank the gods for that," he said, breathlessly, then his face squinted up. "Hang on, I don't have an unc–"

"Drinks all round!" I yelled out, and the awkward matter of his imaginary uncle was lost in the resounding 'huzzah!' Armande rolled his eyes skywards as I hurriedly thrust another hundred Septims to the barkeeper, and turned back to the groom. "We came simply to congratulate you and your new bride." I glanced at Armande, gave a nod. "And we'll be going now."

The alley behind the back of the inn was strewn with filth and filled with the lingering stink of urine. We stepped over the rolled-up bedroll and meagre little collection of belongings that marked a beggar's sleeping place during the night. I hesitated, then turned back and slipped a few Septims into the bedroll, while Armande moved towards the mouth of the alley. He froze, snapping out his hand to make me stop. "Shit, he's out here already."

"You're kidding." I peered around his shoulder, grimaced at the sight of my shadow. He was leaning against the wall opposite, apparently at ease, but his sharp eyes were scanning the street.

"Apparently the Count of Anvil only does hire the best." Armande grinned at me. "Almost a shame we don't have a bucket of stinking offal to dump on his head, eh?"

We ran for it. Veered down an alley at a shout from being us, and barrelled out onto the street, almost slamming into a rag-man in his tattered suit fashioned from scraps. He bellowed obscenities at us while I yelled an apology back over my shoulder. Just me and Armande, breathless and laughing as we tore down the street, dodging passers-by, and hollering for the guard to open the gate. It was like being a boy again, all the worries and fears of the years stripped away. All the pain I'd suffered and the war of attrition within the guild: none of it mattered because I was going to marry the woman I loved and we would be happy for the rest of our lives.

Out of breath and wheezing – and ready to acknowledge that Armande might have a point about me getting fat and lazy – I collapsed on a wall in a quiet cloistered square overflowing with foliage. "I think... we lost... him."

"So much for him being the best." Armande peered through an arch draped with ivy, then nodded. "Right, coast is clear. Come on, I promised Min I'd get you to the Rat. There's a few people want to say hello."

~o~O~o~

A few people turned out to be enough to pack the private room of the Rat to the rafters, enough to leave me close to gobsmacked and even closer to tears. A ragged cheer rose up to greet up as we entered, along with a tidal wave fug of sweat and smoke – tobacco and skooma pipes both. Already fairly drunk, Min was tilting back his chair, one boot propped on the table, the other in Claudine's lap, but he sprang up and hugged me, whispering, "You sly fucker," in my ear.

I did the rounds, a string of hugs and back slaps that left me winded, so many that I wasn't sure it was ever going to end. There were questions, all of which I deflected with ease. Min had told them I was retiring because I'd found a wealthy old widow with more money than sense: Perhaps I should have been hurt that this cover story was so easily swallowed, but I have to admit it did sound like the sort of thing I might have done in another life.

When Sam arrived, I was propping up Nico, his arm slung around my shoulder, while he slurred drunkenly into my ear, flecking my cheeks with spittle. I kept nodding, even though I couldn't understand more than a word in ten of what he was saying, and tried to disengage without upsetting the lad. Unlike me, he'd stayed small and slight, and never had been much good at holding his liquor.

Sam's gaze, dark and serious, met mine across the room and I swallowed.

"Oh shit."

Nico slumped against me. "Whassat?"

"Sam's here," I hissed, as if that would mean a damn thing to him in this condition.

He mumbled something, then groaned as I deposited him on the nearest chair. He slumped forwards, his face suddenly green. I whistled to one of his friends, a lanky Breton boy with a mass of shaggy black curls, and jerked my head at Nico. "We've got a spewer."

"Fucksake." The Breton groaned, rolling his eyes skywards, but he shoved himself away from the wall and ambled past me.

I forced my breathing to slow, wished my heart would get the message and do likewise. Sam was listening to something Min was murmuring in his ear, nodding occasionally, then he lifted his gaze to mine. "Well," he said, "aren't you full of surprises?"

We found a table at the back, in a quieter corner of the room. A couple of cat-burglars who mostly worked the Elven Gardens were sitting there, but Sam turfed them out with a jerk of his head, and took the chair near the wall. I sat opposite him, throat tight with guilt and fear.

"So," he said, "I hear you're getting married."

"Yeah." I fiddled with the neck of my beer, stared down at the pitted surface of the wooden table. "And no one's more shocked than me, believe me. Look, I don't want you to think I'm not grateful..."

"Grateful?"

"For everything you've done. For me, for Armande. Accepting us into the guild."

He was silent for a moment, studying me over the rim of his tankard. Then he gave a shake of his head. "Fuck do you think we are, kid? The Dark Brotherhood?"

"What?"

"Once you're in you're in for life? Fuck that. A thief retiring because he's found a better life is a cause for celebration in my book. Have you found a better life?"

Um..." And the idiot grin was back. "Yeah."

"Good. I'm happy for you. Matter of fact, I've been thinking about retiring, too. I'm getting too old for this life."

"You, old? Never."

He laced his fingers behind the back of his head and gave me a lazy grin. "Maybe I'll take a leaf out of your book, Jack. Find a nice girl, settle down and live the quiet life. I even know the girl I'd pick too. Although something tells me your life of retirement is going to be anything but quiet. But settling down... children..." The look in his eyes was wistful, but then he grimaced. "Not that I'll ever get the fucking chance to retire the state the guild's in."

"Children..." I stared into my ale. It wasn't something I'd had the time to consider in the whirl and tempest of the last couple of weeks. It was as if the count was in a rush to get the whole messy business over and done with. But of course there would be kids, and most likely soon – Millona would consider it part of our duty to Anvil to produce an heir and keep the Umbranox line alive.

It was a dizzying and terrifying thought, but I pushed it aside for the moment.

"There was something else I wanted to talk to you about," I said, lowering my voice. "Something I need to know... who here in the city knows me by the name 'Corvus'?"

"Ah."

I drew a breath. "I want to make a clean break with this life, Sam. And it's not that I'm not grateful, honest I am, you have no idea, but I swore to Millona..."

"Hard to make a clean break if former colleagues come after you."

"I mean, I trust them... I'm sure no one would try to..." I fell silent at the look he shot me. _Fucking hell, Jack,_ I thought. _Since when did you get so fucking naïve?_

Sam rested his elbows on the table and spoke quietly so only I could hear. "Far as I'm aware, me and the Fox are the only people who know, saving your immediate circle." He nodded towards Min, swinging Claudine around in an elegant dance step completely out of time with the fast-paced drumbeat. Nearby, Armande leaned close to Miaran and murmured something in her ear, while she smiled wickedly at whatever he was saying.

"I can't speak for them, Jack, and nor can I speak for the Fox, but I swear on all I hold dear that I will never tell another soul." Sam bunched his fist over his heart, as solemn and heartfelt as any drunken oath could be. "On my honour as a thief, whatever that may be worth."

"And the Fox?"

He sighed, and made a curiously Breton gesture with his fingers, a flick of his fingers ceiling-wards. "The Fox is the Fox. As far as I know, he's not told anyone, and I can't see why he would, but I've long given up trying to fathom how his mind works. Sometimes I think he's almost as bad as a woman."

"That's..." I paused, something flickering like a shadow across my mind.

"Something I said?"

"No... I'm not sure. Probably nothing." I swigged my ale. "Thank you, Sam. I mean it. For this, for everything. And I happen to believe your honour is worth a very great deal."

Ah, you're a damn fool of a boy," he said, rolling his eyes. But he was smiling. "You getting maudlin on me now? In my book that's the cue for another drink. Or would your betrothed disapprove?"

And another drink there was, and another. And plenty more after that. I make no excuses for how wild I was in my youth. I was a young man and I ran with a wild crowd. Marriage and Millona calmed me, for a little while at least, until certain circumstances intervened and I found myself succumbing to despair and the welcoming, enveloping numbness that alcohol can bestow. It's one thing to drink from hopelessness and despair, another thing entirely to celebrate amongst friends, and although I might have claimed to regret those nights, often vocally the morning after, with the benefit of hindsight I don't regret a single one. I was with friends, and bonds formed under the influence of Sanguine can be as strong as any forged on the battlefield.

Sam climbed onto a chair and then onto the table, a shrill piercing whistle cutting through the air. The ragged hush took its time to descend, and it took Min threatening to give the next person who spoke a good kicking if he didn't shut his mouth and listen to his doyen, to bring it on completely.

"You all know why we're here," Sam began, and a voice from the back called out, "I don't," followed by a yelp as Min slapped the heckler around the back of the head. A brief good natured scuffle ensued. Sam ignored them and raised his beer to me. "I had a gut feeling about you, Jack, right from the first minute I saw you. I figured it was just the sausages I'd had the night before, but it turned out my gut was right. You're a fine thief and you're loyal and the guild will miss you. I hope to all the gods we never see your face again."

Another slap on the back, this one hard enough to wind me and I spun around, ready to swear at the bastard who'd done it. It turned out to be Claudine.

"To Jack!" The toast echoed through the tavern. And over the yelling and the cheer, Sam pointed his tankard at me. "You're someone else's problem now, shithead."

~o~O~o~

It was well past dawn when we finally left the Rat, blinking and stumbling through the city streets wreathed with mist, and the sky overhead gray and overcast. We stumbled home to the Waterfront District, and I felt a shiver at how strange it was to think it was no longer my home – that I was a visitor there. While the rest of the Imperial City was beginning to wake up, the slums slept on. Filthy as ever it might have been, but the breeze blowing in off Lake Rumare swept away the foetid stench of shit and urine and poverty, and brought a kind of peace. Wreathed with mist, even the squalid shacks seemed beautiful.

Armande cursed as he tried to unlock the door, I wandered off through the warren of the shanty town to the edge of the lake. The breeze stirred ripples in the water, but otherwise everything was still and quiet. I sank down, knees drawn up against my chest, and wrapped my arms around them.

Armande's footsteps scuffed through the dirt behind me. "I wondered where you'd fucked off to. Finally got the door open open to find you'd buggered off."

I glanced up at him. "I'm getting married," I said, faint awe in my voice.

He sank down heavily next to me. "Finally hit you has it?"

"Like a ton of fucking bricks. It's weird. It almost doesn't seem real. You ever think..."

"What?"

"I don't know... that the gods might have a hand in this? Everything we've been through..."

"I thought you believed the gods were all but useless."

"I did. I do. But..." I trailed off. I shifted position, slipped my hand beneath my shirt and pressed it against the old scar in my side with a prick of unease. Above the sky was black as ink, and an image flashed through my mind: of ravens swarming above me, of Elise, long dead, kneeling in the water with her back to me. _Maybe not the gods exactly,_ I thought, and shivered. "Never mind. I think I'm talking bollocks."

"Well, your mouth is moving and words are coming out so that'd be my guess." He leaned against me companionably. "Want another, see the night out in style? I know where Jobasha keeps his secret stash of moon sugar. You're barely even drunk."

"I'm drunk enough. I promised Millona I wouldn't go wild. And I think she'd draw the line at sugar. Especially the full-strength Khajiit stuff."

"Henpecked already?"

"Yeah, and I've never been happier." A silence fell. My gaze flicked back to the sky. Armande shifted, and when I glanced at him I saw his eyes had darkened. "What is it? Something on your mind?"

"Swear you won't take offence?"

I bunched my fist over my heart. "I swear."

He nodded slowly, rolling a stone between his fingers. "You know why the count agreed to let you marry his daughter, right?"

"Naturally. He was entranced by my natural wit and devastating charm."

"Could be that," he agreed. "But I think it's more likely he figured you'd be easy to manipulate. And even easier to get rid of if that turned out to not be the case." When I stayed silent, he prodded me with his boot. "You swore you wouldn't take offence."

"I did," I said quietly. "And I haven't. And I knew that already, Armande. I'm not stupid."

"So you just don't care."

I shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, he can shove his hand up my arse up to the elbow and waggle me about like a hand puppet if it means I get to marry Millona. I'll bend over to give him better purchase so long as he greases up well beforehand."

"Now there's romance. I just hope if I ever get married my father-in-law won't insist on fisting me."

I grunted. "You never can tell with Dunmers." And then, after a few moments of silence had passed: "I really do love her," I said quietly.

"Yeah, I know. And I don't think Sam can wait to be rid of you. I'll miss you though."

"Well, come and visit me then. Anvil's not that far away."

He glanced at me. "I thought you had to cut all ties. Marrying a countess and all, you can hardly consort with thieves."

"You're not a thief, you're my brother."

"Don't start. I'm not that far from throwing up as it is."

"I just mean it's different. I promised her I wouldn't steal, not that I'd leave every part of myself behind. Millona would understand." Although I was fairly sure her father wouldn't. "Just so long as you don't try to corrupt me and lead me back into a life of crime."

"Me? You're the one who dragged us all the way to the Imperial City to join the Thieves' Guild."

"Right, because you were leading such a blameless life of innocence before you met me, weren't you? Planning to join the priesthood, was it?"

"Might have. You never know."

"I fucking well do."

He grinned. "Yeah, okay. The priesthood never was that likely really. A Daedric cult maybe. One of the fun ones."

"By which you mean Sanguine."

"Well... yeah."

"It's not nearly as fun as it sounds, believe me."

"Damn, it's going to be quiet around here. With you worming your way into an unsuspecting nobility and Job off to Morrowind soon..." He took a breath. "I asked Miaran to move in with me."

I grinned at him. "Seriously?"

He nodded. "And she was drunk so she said yes, so I can't back out now or I'll be a dead man."

"So you'll be living in sin with a beautiful Dunmer. Godsdamnit, Armande, I'm proud of you. Maybe that fisting from her father won't be too long in coming."

"I'm off to bed," he said. "You coming?"

"Nah, I don't think I could sleep if I wanted to. You go, though."

He grunted, set his hand on my shoulder and pushed himself up. As he weaved his way back up the bank to the edge of the shantytown, I lay back, pillowed my head on my upturned palm and waited. After a few moments came soft footsteps on the grass, so quiet I wouldn't have heard had I not been listening out for them. There was a rustle of clothing beside me, then a woman's soft voice spoke. "I hear congratulations are in order."

I opened my eyes. The Fox sat beside me. For the first time I felt not even the slightest twinge of unease at the sight of the cowl: I was far too content (and possibly too drunk) to care.

"You should have come to the Rat," I said. "We drank a toast to you." Actually, we'd drunk a toast to many things: to wine and hot springs, to Emperor Uriel's left testicle. The Fox had merely been one in a long and not terribly dignified list.

"What makes you think I wasn't there?"

I frowned up at her. "You weren't. I would have seen you." Although of this I was by no means certain.

"'I don't want you to think I'm not grateful,'" she said, a passable imitation of my voice. Strange to hear it echoed back at me.

"You were there, but..." I closed my eyes, trying to think back, but perhaps I was drunker than I'd realised, because my memories were confused. "I don't remember seeing you."

"Don't think too hard, Jack. You might strain something. And you're wasting your time. You won't remember seeing me. Not unless I intend myself to be seen."

"Is it something to do with the cowl?"

She shot me a sharp look. "You're very perceptive. That's more than most people realise. Yes." There was a deep sadness in her voice. "It's something to do with the cowl."

"Must come in useful when you're a thief. No one remembering you."

She didn't answer me. Under the cowl, her eyes had closed. Her shoulders were tensed up so tightly they shook. She reached up under the cowl to wipe at tears I couldn't see, her breathing uneven, jagged.

 _Shit_. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." And I was at a loss again, fumbling for something to say, some way of fixing things, while my guildmaster quietly wept beside me. After a moment or two I placed my hand on her shoulder, only for her to shake it off with a wrench of her upper body.

I looked away.

 _What's her name? The girl you think about when you're fucking me._

A shivery sensation, a flicker of a memory, dangled in front of me then snatched away before I could see it clearly. A crow ruffled its feathers at the water's edge.

"If I can, I'll help you," I said quietly.

She took a breath, watching the crow. "I thought you were done with this life."

"I am. I made a vow I was done thieving, and I won't break it. But if I can help in any other way, I will, I promise."

She turned her head. Her eyes shone with tears. "That sounds like a promise you'll come to regret."

"They usually are, aren't they? But still... I mean this one."

"Thank you for the offer, Jack." Her hands knotted together. She stood in a shift movement and turned her back. "I doubt very much whether you'll ever see me again."

I felt a pang, a stab of something that felt very much like regret, and watched her as she vanished into the shadows of the shantytown.

She didn't look back.

~o~O~o~

And my night still wasn't done. The shadow the count had set to watch me was clearly determined to give his patron his money's worth, since as I finally gathered up enough energy to bestir myself, I saw his lanky figure emerging from between the shacks. He didn't look happy.

I sighed, and sank back down. "I wondered how long it would take you to find me."

"You–" He was struggling with the words, every muscle tight with quiet apoplectic fury. "You tricked me."

"Ah, don't take it to heart. You must have known I'd never lead you right to my friends."

His lips pressed together, and he glared past me, out at the lake. "And here I thought we were getting on so well. You realise I'm going to have to report this to the count. And he'll have your bollocks for this."

"Ah. Yes. About the count..." I propped my chin on my palm. "I wonder how he'd react to the information that instead of keeping me in view at all times, you spent the night in the bed of a tavern wench instead? A tavern wench that I lent you the coin for."

He snorted. "It's your word against mine."

"Correction. My word and the tavern wench's."

He opened his mouth. Shut it again. "Assuming she remembers me."

"True. Of course, the five hundred Septims I slipped her to seduce you might have helped to fix the incident in her mind."

He stared at me in gobsmacked silence for a moment. Emotions warred on his face, before he finally settled on a kind of frozen caution. "You're lying."

"You seem like a man who's good at reading people. Do you really believe that?"

He stared at me, then sank down heavily, and buried his face in his hands. "Fuck."

I clapped him on the back. "Ah, don't take it so to heart. There's a silver lining here if you only look for it."

"Why? Why would you– Why would you _do_ that to me?"

"Dunno really. You looked so miserable outside I thought it might cheer you up. A warm body in your bed to chase off the chill from the rain. I'm a generous sort." I shrugged. "Also, I thought it might come in handy to have a bit of leverage on you. And, oh look, turns out I was right."

"You _bastard_."

"True enough. I've never claimed otherwise. But there's another way of looking at this, Rory."

" _Really_?"

"I'm loyal to my friends."

At that he went still, eyed me warily.

"The count won't be the count forever," I continued, "and I'd rather let a goat gnaw off my testicles than keep on his man-of-business. And I expect that one-eyed bastard feels much the same way about me."

He considered this for a moment, eyes shifting from me to the moons above. "You're offering me the stewardship if I keep silent about you slipping me?"

"No. That's Millona's place, and I'll never seek to interfere with her duty to Anvil. She'll pick her people herself and I won't interfere with that. But I will need my own man-of-business, someone I can trust. Ideally someone who knows Anvil and its people. That sound like you?"

"I was born and bred in Anvil." His gaze darkened. "And I'm loyal to the Umbranoxes."

"Good. So am I. And as for tonight, I give you my word that nothing has happened that my soon-to-be wife would disapprove of."

"Your word. And what's that worth?"

"Personally, I think it worth a very great deal. Apparently so does Millona."

He glared at me, then sighed, buried his face in his hands again. "I don't have much choice, do I?"

"Not if you want to keep in the count's good graces." I paused, eyeing him with a faint smile, a glint of warning in my eyes. "Not to mention mine. And if I were you I'd be more worried about me."

He stared at me in a miserable silence.

I struggled to my feet and rolled out my shoulders. "Well, you don't have to decide straight away. Let it percolate in your head for a little while." I clapped him on the back. "Think a little on what you have to lose, and everything you might have to gain. And in the meantime let's take a walk, my friend, because you look like a man who could do with a drink and I'm a man who rarely says no to another. I'll spring for two rooms in the Tiber Septim hotel." I bared my teeth. "Maybe a tavern wench for you too, if you feel in the mood, although the Tiber doesn't seem quite that sort of place."

"You really are a bastard."

"Mm, and yet in comparison to the count I'm a positive delight."

~o~O~o~

Millona and I were married in Anvil's chapel of Dibella on the 23rd of Sun's Height that year. People travelled in from all around County Anvil, up and down the Gold Coast and from the Highlands. So many people were crammed into the Chapel that they had to cling to the pillars and sit perched on the edges of the pews, and when the primate announced we were man and wife the cheer was so deafening I couldn't hear Millona's delighted laugh as she pressed back against me.

A scant handful of guards – there should have been more but the crush was so tight they couldn't work their way through to the front – held back the crowd, preventing them from rushing forwards to congratulate us. And outside everyone who hadn't been able to squeeze inside the chapel lined the streets, eager for a glimpse of the Lady Millona on her wedding day, in her gown of brushed silk the colour of smoke, her hair elaborately curled and entwined with sprigs of baby's breath for luck and fertility.

Both of us were breathless with joy, dizzied by the noise. I was quietly thanking the gods that I'd fended off Min's insistence that I should sneak out of the window and join them for a drink in the Flowing Bowl on my last night of freedom. I wasn't hungover, just nervous as hell, and awestruck that the day I'd almost begun to think would never come was finally here.

Aside from the noise and the heat, my memories of that day are fixed on Millona. How she laughed at the deafening wall of noise, how her fingers were entwined with mine, which seemed in itself a promise of its own, private and personal. It seemed to mean far more than vows made before gods who cared little whether or not we broke them.

For all of Lord Umbranox's personal dislike of me, no one could say he did not celebrate his daughter's wedding in style. It was a lavish affair, vast trestle tables that stretched the length of the main street of Anvil, with wandering bards and acrobats to entertain the crowd, and enough food to feed an army – including spit-roast pigs (I will always wonder if that was a deliberate slight on his part, since he knew full well I could not stand the smell). The horse that drew the carriage that bore Millona and I from the chapel to the castle was snow-white, and her train twined around our feet, binding us together still further. The streets overflowed with flowers, awash with colour and smiling faces and I had the feeling that they were here purely to celebrate their love for Millona, and that I was purely an adjunct to the whole affair. An afterthought, easily forgotten.

Throughout the journey Millona's hand remained in mine. I was almost afraid to let go, in case doing so would break the spell, shatter whatever illusion that had been cast upon us.

"It's strange," Millona said, leaning close so I could hear her over the noise of the crowd and the crunch of the wheels of the carriage bearing us to the castle. "I almost never thought this day would come." Her eyes were teasing. "Husband."

"That's going to take some getting used to." I glanced down at our joined hands, trying not to think about the warmth of her thigh pressed against mine. If I started letting my mind run along those lines I'd never be able to get it to stop, and the day was a long way from being over.

There was time enough for thoughts of naked skin later, when the feasting and the festivities were over and I'd run the gauntlet of virtually every noble house in Cyrodiil. The Emperor himself sadly did not grace us with his presence – I'd almost choked when I'd learned he had been invited – but Prince Ebel attended.

Time enough that night _and_ every night after, I thought and a spark of excitement in my chest spread into blossoming joy that made me laugh out loud. Millona gave me a questioning glance, and I shook my head, pulled her close, and risked a kiss that was far chaster than I longed for. Her lips were tacky with whatever substance she'd used to paint them, but there was promise on her lips and tongue and in her eyes when we broke away. She flushed beneath the paint, pressed her fingers against her lips as if to hold back a secret.

 _We're married_ , I thought. _She's my wife. I'm her husband._

And then: _How the fuck did that happen?_

~o~O~o~

The reports of my behaviour at my wedding have since been embroidered and embellished through spite and malice by the cruellest of gossips, the ones who flock like sharks at the first drop of blood in the water. It's certainly true that I paid court to women other than my wife: indeed it felt like I spent all the time dancing with women other than my wife. It seemed that no sooner than I let go of Millona's hand she was swept away, leaving me to spend most of the night trying to find my way back to her again.

Story of my fucking life.

The gossips took particular note of the attention I lavished on Miaran, who in their tales naturally took on the role of the mistress I'd brought with me from Morrowind.

But damn those gleeful, gossiping, shrivelled hagravens to Oblivion.

At every turn, I dodged glasses of wine thrust into my hands, as well as attempts to buttonhole me. Reports of the count's ill-health were spreading, and there were plenty of wealthy merchants determined to lay down the foundations for a future profitable relationship. Backing into a corridor away from a persistent landowner with a hare-brained scheme of setting up a guar-farm north of Anvil, who wanted to discuss the matter of subsidies, I turned to found myself face to face with Count Umbranox. He was already well-lubricated with brandy, his smile fixing slightly at the sight of me, and talking with a captain of the Imperial navy who was well past lubricated and very nearly knocking on the door of flat-out drunk.

"Ah, the groom himself!" the captain said. "Come, my boy, you shouldn't be without a drink at your own wedding, what?!"

"No, no, really, I'm–" Another sturdy back slap – damnation, I was starting to get sick of those – and he thrust a glass of brandy into my hand. I caved and took a sip, while the captain fixed me with a mock stern gaze.

"Lucar was telling me you're not a naval man!" He was the sort of man who bellowed no matter how quiet the surroundings. No mercy for pirates, brigands, mutineers or eardrums.

"Me? No, I'm afraid not. I get sick on the jetties in the harbour. Um..." I glanced at the doorway. "I don't suppose you've seen..." And I grinned despite Lucar's not-quite-a-glare fixed on me. "I don't suppose you've seen my wife?"

"Lost her already, have you?! Now there's an excellent start to a marriage! I wish to all the gods I'd had the foresight to lose my wife on our wedding day!"

He roared with laughter and gave me yet another fucking back slap. My hand clutched convulsively around the brandy snifter. The next man to slap me on the fucking back would have a fistful of shattered glass and the finest liquor Colovia can offer intimately introduced to his face.

My grip loosened. Nice dream. But Corvus Alviarus – Corvus Umbranox now, I supposed, with a start – was hardly the sort of man to glass someone at his own wedding. No matter how tempting.

"She'll be in a corner somewhere gossiping," the count said. "Let the poor girl be, man."

"At least until later, eh?!" the captain said with a wink. He knocked back the rest of his drink and excused himself to find something stronger. I tensed for the obligatory back slap but thankfully none came. Lucar watched me, without even the slightest pretence at a smile now.

"I suppose," he said grimly, "I ought to congratulate you and wish you all the best. As much as it pains me, Corvus, I do, since to do otherwise would be to wish my daughter misery."

"Thank you," I said, then cast a shy little glance at him. "Father."

His jaw tightened, and he glared at me over the rim of his brandy glass. "Corvus," he said, "unless you want to know what it would mean to spend the rest of your accursed life with your insides on the outside I strongly suggest you never call me that again."

"No... No, of course not." I cleared my throat. "Sorry, My Lord. I beg your pardon."

"Oh fuck it," he muttered, with a sigh, and pulled me into a hug that smelled of brandy and tobacco smoke. I might have felt honoured had he not whispered, "Hurt her and I swear you'll spend your last moments wishing you'd never been born," in my ear. Then he pulled away, and jerked his head towards the door. "Now fuck off. I've had about as much as I can stand of your face today. I plan to spend the rest of the evening weeping into my brandy stores and wishing my daughter had never met you."

"I'm truly touched, My lord."

His eyes narrowed. I made myself scarce.

~o~O~o~

And then, just when the night had started to feel as if it would never end, I saw Millona ascending the stairs of the Great Hall, arm in arm with Qileel. Her gaze met mine, and her eyes were wide, reflecting the same nervousness I felt. And then they were both gone.

"Oh gods." My hand tightened around the glass. I felt almost dizzy, as if I'd been snatched into another world where the rules were very different and everyone was looking at me, grinning, waiting for me to make a fool of myself. Of all the emotions I'd been expecting to feel on my wedding night, terror certainly hadn't been one of them.

Thankfully the days when the bridal couple would be chased to the bedchamber by a crowd of drunken celebrants who would then remain outside roaring and cheering and clapping along in an attempt to set the rhythm (as if any man could be expected to perform under such circumstances) were long gone. It was a quieter, more civilised world now, even in Colovia, but as I slipped away, it was impossible to shake the feeling that everyone was watching me, and knew exactly where I was going and to what purpose.

With my hand on the door to Millona's bedchamber, I paused, my heart pounding, until Millona's soft voice bade me enter. She rose from the bed with a strange stilted manner to her movements, as if she hadn't been quite certain how she ought to greet me. She'd been divested of the wedding dress, and now wore a shift of the same softly brushed silk, her hair unbound, tumbling in curls over her shoulders. Nervously, she smoothed her hands over the shift, as I stepped inside and closed the door. The latch snapped shut with finality and I let out the breath I was holding.

I'd survived. Thank fuck.

"May I offer you a drink, My Lord?" she asked, and before I had the chance to gather my wits and answer she was already crossing to the dresser, where a bottle of wine and two glasses stood waiting. The window was open, the curtains billowing inwards. The distant sound of music drifted up from Anvil's city streets, where the celebrations would run long into the night.

"Thank you, but no. I've drunk enough."

She cast a shy glance my way. "Do you mind if I have one?"

"Let me." I moved to the dresser, and poured her a glass of wine. She shifted, glancing towards the window, then back to me, her cheeks colouring, and in that moment she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

She hesitated, shy as a startled deer, caught between curiosity and the urge to bolt, as I moved towards her. All the promises of the day seemed bound up in that one moment as I raised the wine glass to her lips, and she rested her hand on top of mine. Her eyes met mine as she sipped, the liquid staining her lip. There felt something holy, something sacred in this moment. I raised my hand to cup her cheek, slid my fingers into her hair. Her heartbeat pulsed beneath her skin, fast as a bird's.

A sharp intake of breath at my touch. Her eyes fluttering closed.

All the paint and the trappings of the bride had been stripped from her, and somehow she looked lovelier without the painted eyelids and lips and cheeks.

I swallowed. "If you want, we can wait. I've... I've probably drunk too much anyway. We can..."

Her eyes opened, locking with mine. "I don't." With her hand over mine she brought the wine glass to her lips for another sip, then she pushed it away, sucking at the trace of wine still on her upper lip. I set the glass aside, and lifted my thumb to her mouth to wipe away the wine. Her lips parted and she gave my thumb the gentlest nip of her teeth.

I muttered something – I can't even remember what – and kissed her, as slowly and as gently as I could manage. Her body tensed, then eased, although her heart rate never seemed to slow and nor did mine. The kiss broke off, her lower lip catching between mine for a moment, before I brought my lips to the tender spot beneath her ear instead, my hand finding the neckline of her shift, the line of her collarbone. She whispered my name and pulled away, her hand in mine once more, and the promise of that day, of all those glacial weeks and months and years, were finally to be fulfilled as she pulled me towards the bed.

And as for the rest of what happened that night, frankly, it's none of your fucking business. What transpires between a man and his wife on their wedding night is their business and theirs alone. All I will tell you is that for that night the rest of the world was forgotten; there was nothing but the two of us entwined, in a room filled with promise and the scent of honeysuckle, with every last scrap of mummery and pretence stripped away.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. My head's really not been in the game lately. Thanks as always to Tafferling for betaing, and thank you for reading. Comments always make my day, so please, if you're enjoying this, do take a moment to leave one and let me know. Constructive criticism is welcome too.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Five**

 _'Bravil is the dark grate of the sewer drain where foul and unappetising debris collects. It is the poorest and dirtiest of Cyrodiil's towns, the oldest and shabbiest, the most plagued by criminals, drunkards, and skooma-eaters, and most popular with beastfolk and other foreigners. All Bravil lacks is a coven of Daedra worshippers to make it the perfect pit of villainy... and many rumors suggest that even more evil and depraved worships are practised in secret by Bravil's wicked heathens.'_

– _Guide to Bravil, by Alessia Ottus_

For a few blessed weeks we had peace. The whirlwind of activity that had carried us through the months of preparation went still and silence descended. Millona and I were packed off to the Umbranox family lodge, a modest countryside estate built in the Hammerfell style, overlooking a secluded cove.

There were servants in the house, and even a guard or two, but they were as elusive as they were discreet, and were it not for the occasional footsteps echoing down a corridor, and for the way steaming hot food seemed to miraculously appear on the table at mealtimes, we might have imagined ourselves entirely alone. At night there was nothing to hear except the lulling sound of the waves drifting in through the balcony window, left open to assuage the stifling late summer heat.

Replete and ready for sleep, we'd lie stretched out atop the rumpled covers, with the sweat cooling on our skins and her hair spilling loose across the pillows, until I stirred and rolled onto my side to kiss the hollows of her neck. Every time I thought I knew all there was to know about her body, I found something new to discover. A trio of moles on the underside of her left breast. A scar on her forearm where she'd fallen from a tree (entirely her brother's fault, she claimed with a faint smile, and I laughed and said I doubted _that_ very much) and broken her arm so badly the splintered bone had pierced the skin. The castle healer had fixed her up, but she'd never known agony like it. And there I'd hesitated, because she was waiting for me to share the worst pain I'd ever experienced, and I couldn't. I _couldn't_. I didn't even know where to begin.

She fell silent then, watching me. Her gaze tracked down from my face and over my chest to the scar at my side. Her hand had been resting on my belly, her fingers tangling lazily in the line of hair that ran between my belly button and my crotch, and for a moment they ceased their teasing movement, those light not-quite-painful little tugs.

What could I tell her? That being stabbed and almost dying – those nights of fever-bright dreams, of ravens and shadows and ghosts – was the worse thing that had ever happened to me? If I told her that, I'd be lying and I was done with lying to her, so instead I kept silent, stared hard at the ceiling until Millona kissed me hard enough to quiet my fears, and once again sleep was forgotten.

Even on the cove there might have been no other living soul but us and the gulls arcing overhead. The cove was sheltered by high rocky cliffs, with an unnervingly rickety and steep wooden staircase that led down towards silvery-white sand that seemed to stretch as far as the horizon at low tide. Unfortunately the sense of privacy and seclusion was only imaginary, since the beach was overlooked by the lodge. Discreet the servants might have been, but Millona had no intention of giving them an eyeful. Perhaps just as well, I thought ruefully on our first day there: sand gets everywhere and it chafes.

So instead we stripped to our undergarments and went swimming. I braved the breathtaking chill as quickly as possible, striking out towards deeper water until the shock eased and my body adjusted, then I turned and swam back towards the shallows with lazy strokes. Millona was still wading in slowly, her shift gathered in one hand. Her bared arms had already picked up a little colour from the sun.

"It's best to do it quickly," I told her, swimming a little closer. "One dunking and you'll be used to it. It's lovely once you're in."

"Don't you dare."

"Wouldn't dream of it. The thought never crossed my mind. Although it's entirely possible that I might be lying. I do that from time to time."

"I'll do it when I'm good and ready," she said, and backed away, laughing, as I swam closer still. "I said, don't you dare!"

"Don't you trust me at all, my love?"

"If you were me, would you trust you?"

"If I were you, I wouldn't have been so foolish as to marry a man like me in the first place." I let the waves carry me towards her. This time she didn't move, although she planted her feet a little firmer against the sea bed.

"You do yourself a disservice, my lord husband," she murmured, and drew in a sharp breath as I laid my cheek against the clinging cotton that encased her wet legs, and captured her close with my hand on the backs of her thigh. My thumb found the crease between her buttock and her thigh, and slid gently inwards.

"Corvus–" She laughed again, only slightly scandalised. She still turned shy from time to time, but it hadn't taken too much coaxing to bring her out of her shell, and I was, shall we say, motivated to put the effort in.

"Nothing suspicious whatsoever going on here. They'll think I'm a curious seal." Brine on my lips, my tongue, the rough brush of the cotton. The waves surged up, rocking me closer against her. "A curious, _hungry_ seal."

At this her thighs parted a fraction, her fingers burying themselves in my hair. My thumb worked its way a little deeper, the barrier of the cotton like a particularly stubborn maidenhead, determined to thwart my explorations. Even the pleasant temperature of the water seemed a little colder now, compared to the heat of her body and the warmth of the sun beating against my bared shoulders. The wet cotton stretched drum-tight between the gap between her thighs, and against this I pressed my lips, heard a catch in her breathing, and I grinned, ran my hand down the back of her thigh to the hem of her shift. Found bare skin. Her fingers buried themselves deep in my hair, her thighs opening a little more–

She dunked me, and as I surged up spluttering, she turned, land dived into the wave surging up to meet her. She was a stronger swimmer than me by far; I had no chance of catching up with her.

Unless, of course, she let me.

I should have had more faith in the wickedness of my wife.

She showed me a rocky shelf on the cliff, hidden from the view of the overlooking lodge, with room for two to bask in the sun. And with the shift draped across the rocks to bake dry in the Last Seed sun, I was free to set about my task of kissing the brine from her skin without cold clinging cotton to impede my progress: an impossible effort since every third wave would wash far enough up the rocks to come crashing over us and undo all of my hard, but not thankless, work.

~o~O~o~

The first week of our inevitable return to Anvil, and all the duties and responsibilities awaiting us there, it was as if we were both drunk: on sunlight and saltwater and each other. It didn't take that long to wear off, since her father seemed determined to bore me to death through slow and unrelenting tedium. I had lessons in every aspect of lordship. In maritime history and taxation, in the inner workings of the Elder Council and the Septim Dynasty, with all its snaggles and knots. How to judge the severity of a coming winter and the likelihood of a failed harvest, and why a change in the flora and fauna washing up on the beach might signify a disastrous shift in the weather. In the cat's-cradle familial relationships of all the noble families in Cyrodiil and beyond, and which of their scions might prove suitable candidates for marriage.

"But for the love of all the gods don't say anything about that to Millona," he told me. "The girl's head's filled with silly half-baked romantic notions of marrying for love. Still, not to worry. I'm sure being married to you will cure her of those soon enough."

I slapped at my heart, grinning. As unlikely as it sounds, I was starting to wonder if Millona hadn't been right about her father being fond of me after all.

Either that, or I was so utterly, deliriously happy, I just didn't give a fuck.

Because no matter what a sarcastic cunt he was, I spent my nights with Millona. It didn't matter how determined he was to bore the arse of me, or how many agonising dinners I was expected to attend, such as a particular dinner party at Benirus Manor: a disastrous affair that ended with Ebben Benirus throwing an entire bottle of wine against a wall and telling a staircase bannister to cease its infernal yammering, while the rest of us made polite conversation and pretended we simply hadn't noticed the heir to the oldest noble family in Anvil not-so-quietly losing his mind.

When her bedroom door was closed, we closed out the rest of the world with it, and could try to recapture some of the peace we'd found in the early weeks of our marriage. And it was always her door. It became a running joke in the castle, that my private bedroom was the least used in the castle after the ancient torture chamber, which was relegated to a dusty storeroom at the back of the jail and never used for its original purpose.

I used my room to store my books.

~o~O~o~

Eight months into our marriage, we travelled to Bravil.

The visit was overdue, Millona claimed, and purely because she hadn't paid a visit to Count Terentius and his son in far too long. Neither of them had managed to make our wedding. I had my own suspicions: it had occurred to me that the true purpose of the trip was a pilgrimage to pray at the Great Chapel of Mara, since in all those months of marriage there hadn't been so much as a sniff of a pregnancy, and not for want of trying on my part.

The excitement of early marriage had begun to ease off, settling down to something quieter and more restrained, if still full of joy. Even the count's sarcasm had begun to lose a little of its sting, as if his heart was no longer in it.

We spent quiet evenings in our parlour, reading together, before we retired, finally, inevitably, to bed, firelight gleaming on sweat-soaked skin. And afterwards, there might be a moment where I'd move to roll off and she'd cling tight, with her legs wrapped around mine, kissing me until I softened inside her. She said nothing, but the sad, solemn look in her eyes began to creep back. I might have tried to kiss away the crease between her brows, if I hadn't thought that drawing attention to it might make it more real.

It was hard not to think about my past at times like that. For a man who, in the politest possible way, has been around more times than a butter churner, by all rights I should have left a string of bastards across Cyrodiil. And yet the matter had never seemed to come up. There were ways and means of preventing conception – some alchemical, others more prosaic – but the creation of bastards is a numbers game. There had been scares, but far fewer than I might have expected, and while I'd been prepared to do whatever was necessary they'd never come to anything.

And I'd never even stopped to _think_. To wonder if there might be a reason why my seed never seemed to take root no matter how moist and fertile the ground. Instead I put it down to the unnatural luck of a thief, and the cleverness of alchemists and women, and assumed that when I put my mind to the matter it would be easy.

Only eight months. Not long at all, not really, but still a niggling fear began to blossom in my heart, unfurling a little more each time I saw that crease between Millona's brows, every time her courses came on each month. She'd laughed when she first talked of visiting Bravil, and the sound was easy and light-hearted, with no sign of doubt or anxiety, but still I watched her across the breakfast table and wondered.

~o~O~o~

We travelled in Rain's Hand as soon as winter had eased its grip, planning to sojourn briefly in the Imperial City to attend a feast at the Mages' Guild. The month was suitably named that year, since the rain barely ceased throughout our journey east. While Millona spent some time browsing the clothing and jewellery shops in the Market District, I'd hoped to have the chance to catch up with Armande while I was there, but there never seemed a suitable moment to slip away. I did see Brey though, after the feast was done and we could set about the vital task of finishing off all the wine rather than let it go to waste.

Millona asked him some questions about his research. Being polite, I assumed, although her interest in the nonsense that followed – some esoteric business involving the channelling of magicka into runes – seemed genuine and not at all feigned. I sat back, drank my wine, and tried to look like I was following the conversation, while thinking how much happier Brey seemed when he was talking about his work. His eyes were bright, his expression animated, and his accent, I noticed, became a little softer, far less abrasive. He still swore too much, considering the company he was in, enough to draw a few scandalised glances from other tables and one or two 'well-I-nevers!', but Millona's father had been a sailor. She'd heard far worse.

"As it turns out," Brey told me afterwards, when Millona had fallen in with a couple of other noble patrons of the magic arts, "I'm thinking of requesting a transfer to the chapterhouse in Anvil."

I brightened a little. As much as I loved Anvil, it could get a little lonely. Most of the friends I had there were Millona's rather than mine. "Are you really?"

"Mm." He swirled his wine in its glass, favouring me with a sharp little grin. "It can't come as that much of a surprise, though? After all someone I truly respect and admire lives in Anvil–"

"Brey." I pressed my hand against my heart. "I'm _honoured_ –"

"–And that person is Hannibal Traven." He raised his eyebrows at me. "I'm sorry, you didn't think I could have been talking about you, did you? I said someone I respected and admired, not a cunt."

"Of course I knew," I said grinning. "You're far too predictable."

"You always were a shitty liar." He paused, watching Millona across the room. "Damn, you're a lucky liar though. She's lovely. Questionable taste to have married you, but still..."

"Come to Anvil. There's plenty of other women there with questionable taste there, and one or two I might actually consider introducing you to–"

"Godsfuckingdamn Jack," he snapped, loud enough to make a passing mage glance startled at us. Brey waved a hand at him irritably, gesturing him on. "Another reason I want to go to Anvil," he muttered. "Bunch of nosy fuckers round here."

"Don't get your hopes up. They're not the sort to mind their own business in Anvil, either."

"If I want a woman I'll find one myself," he said, glaring at me. "I'm a mage, not an old maid pissing herself at the thought of being left on the shelf."

A passing woman in pale blue robes gave a shocked gasp. "Well I _never_!"

" _Fuck off_!"

~o~O~o~

And so Millona and I travelled on to Bravil, through the mist and murk and constant drizzle. We had to stop halfway thanks to flooding on the Green Road, and spent three days spent holed up in a tiny little inn run by a freckly Imperial woman struck dumb by the presence of such wealthy guests. She stammered at the slightest question or comment, and was so nervous that she kept forgetting herself, slipping into a Nibenese dialect that even I struggled to understand.

Bravil had changed little in the years since I'd fled for the Imperial City. The bridge across the Larsius was in better repair, but the streets were still slick with mud and filled with beggars who heard the clink of coins and the heartbeat of a compassionate woman as sharks smell blood in the water. While the guards pressed the worst of them away and chased off the ones who tried to double back for another go, I held back. Ordinarily I was generous with my money (when I had it), but it was as if a fist had closed around my chest, making it hard to breathe.

At the castle, we shed our waxed cloaks and waited to be presented to the count, the ceremony of the whole affair stilted and stylised; it couldn't have been more different to the casual atmosphere cultivated in Castle Anvil. I was certain that Count Terentius, who looked far older than I'd expected, would recognise me, but he only begged our pardon that his son could not be here to greet us, and would not be present for dinner either, thanks to a matter of great importance that could not wait. He was smiling, but his eyes flicked away.

We had adjoining bedrooms, rooms in which, I realised with a shiver, I had been before, which I'd stolen from a lifetime ago. It was an eerie feeling, as if the figure of Saint Alessia in the hideously incompetent painting above the fireplace might turn and point her finger at me, branding me a liar and a criminal and a fraud. While Qileel brushed out Millona's damp frizzing hair, I went into my own bedroom, grinning at the four-poster bed that would never be used. I stripped off my travelling clothes, scrubbed my skin clean with my linen undergarments, then changed into fresh clothes for dinner.

By the time I had finished, it had darkened outside, and the glass rattled in the window pane, the wind whistling a hollow tune. Despite the lit fire, there was a definite wintry chill to the air. Almost enough to make me wish we'd stayed at the inn. Utterly flummoxed the service might have been, but it had been cosy and warm, the sort of place where the patrons knew and looked out for each other.

Or perhaps more accurately: enough to wish we'd never come to Bravil.

I was thinking for the first time in a long time about Tertius, and how he'd fled Bravil only for circumstances to bring him back. I'd never intended to come back either, and yet here I was. Living a very different life, as a very different man, but still... Here I was. It gnawed at me: this feeling that perhaps I wasn't so different after all. That this happiness I'd found was temporary, and sooner or later, I'd find myself back again, trapped in the life I'd sworn I'd left behind.

 _You don't seriously expect to be happy for long, do you?_ That little cunt of a voice, the one that had been silent for a long time, was beginning to speak up again. _I'm going to enjoy this, you little fucker. Wait until you find out the shit I've got lined up for you. Just you fucking wait._

A shivery feeling crept over my skin. The windows were streaked with rain, and outside the view of the castle gardens was gray and bleak. I wiped the condensation from the glass with my hand, thinking that spring seemed to have been unavoidably detained this year. Below a wind-whipped tree lashed at the air, and an image of a kneeling man rose up in my mind. I drew in a ragged breath, wondering if I'd ever be free from my memories of the Fox.

A soft noise behind me made me glance around. Millona was watching me from the adjoining door.

"Is it strange to be back?" she asked.

"A little."

"By which you mean 'extremely'. Has it changed much?"

"Hard to tell, really. I'm not sure places like Bravil ever change."

"I must admit I'm curious," she said, coming deeper into the room. As she passed the dresser, she flexed her hands in a way that made me suspect she was aching to run her finger across the top of the furniture to check the thickness of the dust. "It's strange to think of you growing up here. I've seen so little of Bravil, and only ever the main streets." She tucked her hand around my arm, rested her chin on my shoulder. Her indistinct reflection loomed beside mine in the glass beside mine. "Will you show me?"

" _No_." The word snapped out with far more force than I'd intended. Harsh enough to startle Millona. "There's nothing to see," I said, my tone lighter. "It's even less picturesque than the rest of Bravil, and that's saying something."

"Corvus–"

"It's an awful place, Millona. It's _awful_. I never want to go back there, and I'd die before I ever took you there."

Her hand tightened around my arm. "Tell me," she said. "Please?"

"We lived on Shitbrook Alley." I grinned at the drizzling rain, shrouding the filthy rats-nest of a town from view. "Just off Turdwater Lane. That might be enough for you to get the general idea."

I half-expected her to laugh, but my words met with nothing but silence. When I glanced at her, she was watching me, an expression of disquiet in her eyes. "Are you serious?" she asked quietly.

"Well... no, not really." the glass had fogged up again. I swiped my hand against the condensation. "There's no such place as Turdwater Lane."

"But Shitbrook Alley..."

"That was real. Still is, as far as I know. Not a part of Bravil you've ever seen, I expect. It's quite a sight, particularly in high summer." My voice cracked a little. "Right now the cesspits'll probably be overflowing. That was always a problem in the spring. Armande always talked about how we should build a raft, and Brey used to say they should just use me–"

Silently, she reached out, took my face in her hands and kissed me. I folded her into my arms, rested my chin on the top of her head. "Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"

"I... I don't know, really. I suppose I never thought..." She hesitated.

"You never thought about where I came from," I filled in. "The life I led before I met you."

"I never know how serious you are, Corvus. All these terrible awful things that happened to you but half the time you're laughing when you tell me. I always just assumed..."

"That I was making it all up?"

"Well... honestly, yes. Or that you were exaggerating."

"Oh, gods." I sighed, pulled her close again. "If anything, I actually toned it down because I didn't want to upset you."

She nestled her head against my chest. "I'm so sorry, my love. For not listening, for not taking you seriously."

I shrugged. "No one ever takes me seriously, Millona. It's hardly–"

She slapped my chest, tears in her eyes. "Stop it, damn you. Just for five minutes, stop being so damned glib."

"Sorry." I cupped her cheeks, tilting her face up towards mine. "But if I sound like none of it matters, then that's because none of it _does_ matter now. I'm not that boy any more. I doubt there's a man in all of Tamriel who's luckier and happier than I am, and I would have quite happily dragged myself on my belly through a thousand Shitbrook Alleys if I knew you'd be waiting at the end of my journey."

"Would you at least have had a bath afterwards?"

"Now who's being glib?"

"Your fault," she said. "You always were a terrible influence."

"I do seem to recall warning you once that I was the wickedest of men. And speaking of which, perhaps it's time I played up to my reputation." Easier. Safer. And there was no better way of drowning out my fears. I pushed her hair away from her neck, kissed the tender skin beneath her ear. Her hand splayed against my chest in an unsuccessful and entirely unwilling attempt to push me away.

"Corvus! We're supposed to be meeting the count."

"Bollocks to the count. I shall claim to be indisposed. Maybe I'll blame it on that jugged hare we had on the journey. I did think it might be on the turn at the time."

"No, no, no, Corvus, we really _can't._ They'll be expecting us. The first course–"

"Millona. _Please_ , for me, for the pitiful wretched boy I once used to be, who lived on Shitbrook Alley, off of Turdwater Lane, who never even dreamed he might ever set eyes on a bed, let alone sleep in one with his lovely entrancing wife, I beg you, _let the bastards wait._ "

She was laughing now, her eyes sparkling as we moved inexorably on the bed. And afterwards, with her nestled in my arms, her concerns about keeping the Count of Bravil and his court waiting entirely forgotten, she traced lazy patterns on my chest. "Will you tell me the truth one day, Corvus?"

I tilted my head to look at her. "I've always told you the truth. I've never lied to you, Millona. At least... not recently."

She snorted at this, then gave a shake of her head. "I didn't mean to call you a liar. I know you're not. At least... you haven't been one _recently._ " I grinned at that, kissed the top of her head. "But I have known you long enough to learn that what you call the truth is usually only a facet of what actually happened. And I want to know it all."

"No, you really don't–"

" _Corvus_. Don't seek to tell me my own mind."

"Sorry."

"The truth," she continued. "Without any evasions or half-truths or joking asides. Assuming you're capable of that, of course..."

"To be honest, I'm not entirely certain I am."

"Well, do the best you can then." The rain drummed against the window, and it was getting dark outside. Well past the time we should have been heading down for dinner. Somewhere downstairs in the dining hall they'd be waiting for us, and starting to grow impatient. Perhaps they'd even sent Qileel to come up and find us, and no doubt she'd be dithering because she had a good idea of exactly why we were delayed. We had to get up, I thought, had to start getting ready, but the weight of Millona's hand resting on my chest kept me pinned to the bed. The scent of her hair wrapped itself around me, and a flood of love for the woman I'd married carried me away on a current so powerful I'd never be able to escape it even if I wanted to. "You do know there's nothing you could tell me that would stop me loving you, don't you?" she said.

Unease twisted in my gut. Maybe she was right, but she was missing the point: she might not stop loving me, but that didn't mean she wouldn't still leave me. It only meant it would hurt all the more when it had to happen. _And what happens_ , that voice whispered, _what happens if you can't give her a baby? The one thing she wants, your only real duty, let's face it, and if you can't even give her that, then what exactly is the fucking use of you?_

"I know," I said, and despite the fire in the grate, I found myself shivering.

Millona felt this, and glanced at me, waiting.

I drew a breath, spoke before I even realised I was going to speak. "It hurts."

She frowned at me, not understanding. I closed my eyes, because somehow it made it easier not to have to see her, so long as I could still feel her warmth, and the flutter of her heart beating beneath her skin.

"If I don't always tell you the truth, the full truth, I mean, it's because it hurts too much. Joking about it, laughing like it hardly matters, it makes it easier somehow."

"Because you're pretending it never happened?"

I considered this. "I suppose so. Or perhaps that it happened to someone else entirely. And I will tell you the full truth one day, to the best of my meagre ability. I swear it."

"You don't have to. Not it it hurts so badly. I care about what you are now and the man you will be, not about the boy you used to be."

"I want to, though. Just..."

"Not today?"

"Not today. But I meant what I said, Millona, about it having been worth it. You, this... it feels like a miracle that I don't deserve..."

"Why wouldn't you deserve it?"

"Ah. Well, that would be part of the truth that I haven't told you."

"Godsdamnit," She laughed, lifted herself up to rest her cheek on my chest, her hair spilling over my side like a waterfall. Qileel's work in ruins. We'd need to dress it again before going downstairs, and that would delay us still further. "There you go again, being flippant."

I twisted a strand of her hair around my fingers. "You know, you do swear much more often than you used to before we were married. I'm starting to think I am a bad influence."

"Oh, you're a terrible influence, but don't change the subject." She lifted herself to her knees, and kissed me. "Have some faith in me, you bloody feckless fool, if you can't have any in yourself. You might think yourself an idiot, and I'll admit there have been times when I've been tempted to agree–"

"Completely understandably–"

She clamped her hand over my mouth. "Do I have to gag you?"

I caught hold of her wrist and tugged her hand down. "If that's what you wish. Some people, so I'm told, like that kind of thing–"

"And one of those times happens to be _right now_. I'm trying to tell you I love you, you idiot."

"And nothing says love like the slinging of insults?"

"When the other party won't shut up, yes." She stopped, waiting for me to interrupt again, and for once I kept quiet. Her eyes softened, her hand brushing over my hair. "I love you, Corvus. When you're being a fool and when you're being sensible. When you're behaving yourself and when you're tempting me to further depths of depravity–"

"It's hardly depravity if we're married."

"Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?"

"Probably." I cupped the back of her head, buried my fingers in her hair. "You're the other half of my heart, Millona. That I'm with you, that I'm _married_ to you, there are times when it seems like a godsdamned miracle. It's almost enough to get me worshipping the Nine."

"Only almost?"

"Well, who needs the bloody Aedra when I've got you?"

"I think I love you most of all when you're being heretical." She kissed me, her hair falling in curtains around my face. And forgive me if I skip over certain details here – none of your business, remember? – but it took some effort on my part to summon up the motivation to push her away.

"We're expected downstairs, remember? The count's waiting for us."

"What happened to 'bollocks to the count'? I thought you wanted to make him wait?"

"I did, but..."

"But what?"

I grinned, sheepishly. "I'm starting to get hungry."

"Even after that jugged hare? You really do have a stomach like steel. You were right, I think it was on the turn."

"I grew up on Shitbrook Alley, remember? I've eaten far worse." I drew a sharp breath as she nipped at my ear in a manner that was particularly distracting. And I am, as I have told you before, a man who is easily distracted. "Damn it, Millona..."

"Corvus?" She drew back, smiling, eyes hooded.

"Yes?"

"Let the bastards wait."

I considered this for a moment or two, weighed my wife's expression against the grumblings from my belly, and decided, on the whole, I'd much rather disappoint my belly. "As my beloved wife commands."

~o~O~o~

It was strange to be back in Bravil after so long away. The rain lifted a little after the first few days, enough that I could brave the streets without fear of drowning. Millona had cried off, feeling a little unwell, so I let her sleep and ventured out from the castle after breakfasting.

I'd forgotten how colourful it was. Even with the gloomy light and the mizzling rain, the elaborate brightly coloured silks and wools and velvets favoured by the Nibenese stood out, even if they were mud-splattered and faded through wear.

I visited most of my old haunts, took a stroll through the back streets and winding alleys. A few speculative glances turned my way – Colovian noblemen in expensive clothes were little seen in this part of Bravil – but either it was too wet to mug anyone or I gave off enough of an air of don't-fuck-with-me that they left me alone.

The smell of the stinking river was a little less intense thanks to the rain. Nostalgia twisted in my chest at the sight of a group of river-rats in full flight. Not from guards, but from each other, a game of chase over and under and around the bridge, shrieking with the eternal elemental joy of children.

The Khaijiit fishermen still sat on the quay, a little older, a little grayer in the fur, but otherwise unchanged. The smell from the bucket intensified as I drew closer, already beginning to salivate.

He gave me a disinterested glance, then a second more studied look, his eyes narrowed, ears pricked up. He knew me, I was certain, although whether he recognise me through my scent, or because I was the only Imperial who was ever stupid enough to eat Larsius elvers, I didn't know. I bought a bag of the slippery elvers, another of the smoked fish, and handed over ten times the price he asked for.

Then I leaned on the railings in a companionable silence, sucking an eel into my mouth, watching the children for a little while with an ache in my heart.

When the rain started to pick up, I started back to the castle. If Millona was feeling unwell I didn't want to leave her for too long, and I was already starting to miss her, soppy fool that I was.

She was up by the time I reached her room, seated at the dressing table with Qileel dressing her hair. I'm a simple man: the sight of her unbound hair was like a kick to my heart. Qileel rolled her eyes as I held my hand out for the brush. And as Qileel slipped away, Millona smiled at me in the mirror, a glint of promise in her eyes. The bristles of the brush slipped easily through her hair, and I pressed my free hand against her cheek. She turned her head, pressed her lips to the palm of my hand, and my interest sharpened into desire.

I twisted her hair up into a ponytail to expose the nape of her neck and kissed it. "Tell me, My Lady, are you feeling any better?"

"A little." Her voice was soft, as if she carried a secret.

"Perhaps I can help you to feel better still," I murmured into her neck. "If you'll permit me–"

She laughed. I released her hair, let it spill down over her shoulders like a sweetly scented waterfall, chasing away the smell of Bravil. But as she turned her head to kiss me, it all changed. Her posture stiffened, and she rose to her feet, almost shoving me away in her urgency to put some distance between us.

"What's wrong?"

"Corvus, you stink. What in the name of all the gods have you been eating?" She pressed the back of her hand over her mouth, paling.

"Oh." I laughed. "Another relic of Bravil and my childhood. Larsius eels. They're not so bad once you get used to them. Would you care to–" I fished one of the elvers out of the bag and she gagged.

"That's vile."

I dropped it back into the bag. "I'll eat them elsewhere."

"That would probably be best." She gagged again. "Gods, that's awful."

Worry now began to creep through me. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'll be fine, Corvus, really. Once you get those... those wretched things out of here."

"As my wife commands." And still a little spark of disappointment and anxiety stung me. Because a minute ago I'd been kissing her neck, and then... "Is something wrong, Millona?"

"No, nothing." She took control of her breathing, shot me a glance. "It's just the smell of those fish. I don't think the baby likes them much."

"What bab–" I stopped at the doorway and slowly turned to stare at her. She was still pale, but smiling, one hand clasped over her stomacher. "Millona, are you... Are you pregnant?"

She nodded. "The castle healer seems to think I might be and, and..."

I felt like I was having trouble breathing, as if the air had thickened to the density of molten lead. And I regret it so much now, how my first instinctive reaction to the news that we'd been longing for for months was one of primal terror. "Gods. That's..."

And now she was the one to be worried and uncertain. "You don't... seem happy."

"Of course I'm happy. Or I will be once I stop feeling like I'm going to faint. Um..." I drew a breath and pushed my hand through my hair. "How long have you suspected?"

"Not long. A few days."

"A few _days_? And you didn't think to tell me?"

"I didn't want to tell you until I was certain. And you seemed so distracted with us being in Bravil... Are you sure you're all right?"

"Sorry." I waved a hand vaguely. "Just coming to terms with – _fuck me_ – to terms with the prospect of becoming a father. Um..." I gave a shaky laugh. _Fake it if you must_ , I thought, and spread my hands. "Sorry, if you'll allow me, I'll start again. Millona, that's wonderful."

She laughed, her worry vanishing, but as I started towards her, her eyes flared with alarm, and she backed away rapidly.

"No, no, no. Corvus, you still _reek._ Don't come near me or I rather think I'll vomit all over you."

I stopped still, grinning. "Hardly the first time I've been puked on. And if we're going to have a baby I suspect it won't be the last. Puke away, my love."

She snatched up a pillow and brandished it at me. "Corvus!"

I retreated to my own room, taking the eels with me. In the bath I scrubbed away the aroma of the eels and the stink of Bravil, until I smelled of nothing but soap and my own skin. By the time I returned to Millona, my terror had all but crumbled away, leaving only a few dark shadows behind. She met me, laughing as I kissed her, pressed my hands over her flat belly as if I might be able to feel the burgeoning life inside her.

~o~O~o~

Once more it became a struggle to keep the idiotic smile from my face. Anyone who saw me, who knew something of what it was like to be a new husband, who noticed how Millona cried off breakfast and lunch and occasionally dinner, must have suspected.

Gellius had surfaced at breakfast, but was already on his way out, and although I stiffened, he clearly didn't remember me. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had moments where he couldn't even have recognised his own face in the mirror. He had the look of a man who'd just got in from staying out all night. I wondered if the count recognised the sickly sweet aroma that clung to his son, and if he knew what it meant. The boy was jowly, but he might still have been handsome if he hadn't looked so seedy and dissolute, his dark blond hair greasy and limp. He gave me a surly grunt, and left without a backwards glance.

The count stared down at his hands, laid flat on the table. "Well..." he said softly, then sniffed and looked up, his smile a little forced. "Tell me, Corvus, are congratulations in order?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, My Lord."

"No?" He studied me, and under his regard, the idiot grin came creeping back, spreading across my face until my cheeks ached. "No," the count agreed. "Clearly nothing at all that you ought to be congratulated on there, Corvus. Nothing whatsoever."

I laughed.

~o~O~o~

Millona's nausea melted away as the days passed. We sent word to her father via a Mages' Guild courier, and received a letter of congratulations back. I don't doubt my father-in-law was happy at the prospect of becoming a grandfather, but his joy must have been a little blunted at another tie between us.

Those days seem so precious now. And I knew that at the time, or thought I did, but still it's hard to look back without thinking that I squandered them. As if every scrap of a second that I didn't spend at Millona's side had been wasted, even though she would have very quickly grown sick of the sight of me if I'd spend every spare moment hovering around her.

The cuntish little voice was silenced, and I thought, because I was a happy, hopeful idiot, that it might have been silenced forever. I had all I'd ever wanted. There could be nothing more than this: to be at Millona's side, to be her husband and the father of her children, and live out the rest of my days by her side. My life stretched before me, and it seemed a wide open valley, offering nothing but a welcoming haven. No bandits lurked in the shadowed hollows of the hills, no hungry bears or wolves.

But a man's days of true happiness are finite, and mine were rapidly coming to an end.


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: As always, thanks to Tafferling for betaing and to you for reading. All comments are hugely appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Six**

" _The gods don't do a damn thing. Do they even exist? How could anyone tell? Daedra Lords, sure. They exist. They do things. Bad things, mostly, but things you can see. The gods? They don't do a damn thing. So why do we build big chapels and sit around and mumble, and ask them to save us from this and that? It's stupid. And chapels and priests and folks grovelling on their knees, they're stupid, too."_

– Else God-Hater

I dreamed of darkness. Of ceaseless water the colour of shadows stretching out to the horizon. Waves lapped at the edge of the steeply sloping beach on which I stood, the pale-coloured shingle shifting beneath my bare feet. Overhead the starless sky rippled like the folds in a length of black silk.

The waves surged up the beach towards me, leaving rivulets in the pallid stones like grasping fingers. No white foam caps on these waves: they looked like ink, black and glossy and reflective. Further and further still they reached each time, and as I backed hurriedly up the slope, the stones cascaded from beneath me in a sudden avalanche, carrying me down towards the water. I clawed at the slope for purchase, saw that the stones were not stones at all, but bones, the fine delicate bones of birds, and the more frantically I scrabbled to stay my fall, the faster I fell.

And below my shadow was waiting. That featureless man with his empty face lay beneath the surface of the glassy water, arms stretching up to welcome me. He'd been waiting a long time, that monstrous bastard, but his time was close now. He'd been patient, but he could afford to be. He had all the time in the world.

I plunged into the water, and surged up, gasping. The current had already seized me and was carrying me further out. Water droplets beaded on my skin like quicksilver. Where they touched me, they burned, colder than ice. On my skin, in my eyes, my mouth. Not water at all, but an ocean of shadows from a place sunlight had never touched. They would swallow me up and I would be lost in the darkness forever.

A hand burst from the water and clamped around my throat.

I screamed and jerked for a moment in the darkness, fighting something that held my legs tight, until I reorientated myself, and realised it was the covers tangled around my ankles. I wasn't lost in an ocean of shadows, but lying in a strange bed. And still my heart skittered so fast I thought it might stop completely, and a movement beside me made me flinch and cry out in shock.

"Corvus?" It was Millona's voice, quiet and small.

"Gods, my love, I had the _worst_ dream." I gripped my forehead, and shuddered. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry..."

She grasped my arm roughly, tight enough to bite into my flesh. " _Corvus_."

"I'm awake, I'm awake. I'm sorry, I was dreaming–" I broke off as the shadows around me shifted and remade themselves, and I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. My wife was a pallid ghost sitting up beside me in bed. The covers had puddled in her lap, and she clutched her right hand by the wrist, her palm turned upwards.

Her fingers were black. They shone wetly in the dim light.

For a moment, I was certain the liquid shadows of my nightmare had leaked from the dreamsleeve into the waking world. They'd filled Millona's eyes too, turning them to black hollows in the gloom.

 _Not shadows, at all,_ I thought, with a sharp stab of relief. _It's only blood._

 _Only blood._

That same knife-blade of relief pierced my heart and twisted. In the wake of the relief I'd felt came the hollow understanding that this was it, that our time of joy had finally come to an end. I think I'd always known it was coming; I'd been waiting for it to happen all this time. And even so for a moment I was frozen in place.

 _Move, you damned fool._

I threw myself out of bed, snatching for my dressing gown. "I'll fetch the healer."

If she replied, I didn't hear.

Out in the corridor, I chased down a patrolling guard. "You!"

"My Lord?"

I grabbed his arm and shoved him down the corridor. He opened his mouth to protest but kept silent when he saw my expression. I was already backing away as I barked orders at him. "Wake the castle healer. Tell him the Lady Millona Umbranox is in need of his assistance. Tell him it's a fucking emergency."

"My Lord–" The rest of his reply was lost to me. I'd already turned my back, and was running along the corridor to Qileel's room. I hammered on the until she jerked it open and glared at me, spines flared and prickling with irritation.

"What in Oblivion–" Her anger dissipated as quickly as it flared up. "My Lord, what's wrong?"

"Your mistress is in need of you."

The flash of concern was as brief as her anger. She was already shoving past me, striding on down the corridor, without even bothering to close her bedroom door. And I stood frozen, staring at the open doorway, at a loss as to what to do next.

 _Millona. Go to Millona._

But through the door I'd seen a looking glass, and in it the reflection of the door, and through that a pale blur of my face, and in the murky light it seemed to have no features. I felt an all-too-brief stab of hope that I might still be dreaming, that none of this was real.

And abruptly, I reached out and jerked the door closed.

Down the corridor I met the healer coming the other way, ruffling his fingers through his tousled hair. He was a young ruddy-faced Imperial, face still creased from sleep, grains of sleep caught in the corners of his eyes.

A smear of blood was drying on the back of my hand, and I rubbed it with my fingers as I stopped in the doorway to my room, staring at Millona huddled on the bed, at the blood smeared across the sheets. The healer shoved past me, and as if they'd agreed wordlessly to swap positions Qileel came towards me. She took hold of my arm, guiding me out into the corridor. Her grip was weak, and I could easily have wrenched away, but all my strength seemed to have drained away.

"Will she be all right?"

"Best you wait outside."

I should have argued. Should have told her to go fuck herself. But it was a man's place to wait outside, and I was too young, too uncertain of my position to insist otherwise. So I let her turf me out, and paced the corridor, casting anxious glances at the door until the healer let himself out.

"She'll be fine now," the healer said, and at his words I sagged and exhaled in relief, burying my face in my hands.

"Oh, thank fuck. Thank _fuck_." I dropped my hands. "And the baby? Is the baby all right?"

Silence met my words. I met his reluctant gaze, and in his grimace read my mistake. He'd been speaking only of Millona without really thinking through what he was saying. Without considering the possibility that he might be talking to a fucking moron who hadn't yet realised what had happened here.

He laid his hand on my shoulder, and it felt like a ton weight. So did his voice, although he made it as soft and gentle as he could.

"The baby's gone, My Lord."

~o~O~o~

Millona bled for another week. It was only a little heavier than her normal courses, which seemed wrong somehow. There was little pain, she said, white-faced and weary, only an ever-present ache in her lower back, and headaches that swarmed her like storm-clouds and filled her skull with splinters. Her mood was changeable as the weather, shifting from numbed shock, to heart-broken weeping, to something that seemed very close to normal. I just felt numb.

I wrote the letter to her father, or tried to. The words never seem to come quite right.

 _Your Grace, I regret to inform you_ –

 _Well, looks like we've had a spot of bad luck and no mistake_ –

 _You bastard, you were right all along. I have made her miserable._

None of the letters I wrote seemed quite right. Nothing seemed to quite put into words what had happened, and how lost I felt. How I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. In the end, I went with the 'I regret to inform you' option, although the letter felt far too cold and stilted when I read it back. Impersonal, like I didn't give a damn about the loss of our baby, or how my wife continued to suffer.

As if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.

Returning to Anvil might have been our best option, but Millona flatly refused, and to make matters worse, the Count of Bravil was kindness personified. He enquired gently after Millona's well-being in a manner that made me furious, although it wasn't his fault. Still, he had no damned right to go about being _kind_ to me. It made me want to snap that maybe he should pay more attention to the levels of poverty in his town, and not worry so much about the petty concerns and heartache of his peers.

Instead, I accepted glass after glass of brandy and deflected his questions as best I could. My wife was still indisposed. Yes, she seemed a little better. I kept my answers short and virtually monosyllabic, and the count, damn his unexpected kindness, didn't pry.

The bleeding stopped. Millona seemed tentatively to return to normal. The ache in her back vanished and the savage mood-swings came to settle on a kind of shocked numbness.

We travelled back to Anvil. Rather than returning by carriage, we opted for the Mages' Guild: a blink of an eye and we were home. Or almost. We still had to run the gauntlet of the guild, and face down Hannibal Traven who was just as kindly and sympathetic as the Count of Bravil had been. While Millona wanly tolerated his ministrations, I bent double and splattered vomit on my shoes. I'd really hoped I would manage to avoid puking that time – hardly a dignified arrival for the future Count of Anvil, particularly when it was my wife who had the claim to be unwell.

And back at the castle, Lucar welcomed us home with no questions – thank the gods – but only a hug for his daughter, and a terse nod for me.

Of the baby itself, we didn't speak. We settled back into our routines, but something between us had shifted. Even though her bleeding had stopped, and it was almost as if it had never happened at all, in bed there seemed a vast space between us, an uncrossable gulf. We hadn't made love some Bravil, since the afternoon she'd told me about the baby. Her body felt stiff, her kisses less certain, and it never quite seemed the right moment to attempt to bridge that gap, to kiss her a little harder on the lips and make my meaning clear. I began to fear that moment might never come, that we would never be able to return to what we'd once been. We'd been so naïve, foolish enough to think ourselves untouchable by tragedy, even though we'd both had more than our fair share of it already.

~o~O~o~

The shadows wreathed the bed like a shroud. I lay awake, wishing we'd left the curtains open to let in the moonlight. Beside me Millona stirred. When she spoke, she kept her voice soft, as if she was hoping I was asleep and would not wake. "Corvus? Are you..."

"I'm awake."

She rolled onto her back, lay still for a moment, then rolled the rest of the way. I held my breath, hold out my arm for her to slide into the crook of my elbow. It felt like luring in a wild deer. She hesitated, and I was certain she'd shy away, then she came the rest of the way, and tucked herself into my side, her face buried in the hollow of my throat. I let out the breath I'd been holding and kissed her forehead, her skin smooth and pale as marble.

She tilted her head up towards mine and met my kiss, her lips parted and slightly off centre. I turned towards her out of instinct, but even as she kissed harder, I forced myself to ease off. Would it be a step too far, I wondered, to draw up her nightgown? Gods, I wanted this, though, and desperately so: it felt like it might be the bridge back to normalcy.

A hitch in her breath. Wetness on my cheeks. She was crying. I brought my hands up to her face, and kissed the sharp salt taste of them away, while she reached down to tug up her gown. There seemed a kind of urgency to her movements now; I wasn't sure I liked that, but still my body responded, because _gods-fucking-damn_ it had been too long. Her legs fell open, and her hands gripped my hips, pulling me in, telling me she was ready.

An image flashed through my mind: inner thighs stained with blood, the glint of an eye through a tangle of black hair.

I broke off the kiss, turned my face away. Her fingers bit tight into my hips, but she wasn't urging me on anymore. She must have felt my shudder, because she'd gone still, her breathing ragged with tears.

I rolled off her, onto my back.

"I'm sorry," she said. Her voice was awful, quiet and broken, like a frightened child's.

I fumbled out in the darkness to grip her hand and bring it to my lips, overwhelmed by a sudden fury at the gods. I was used to being disappointed and fucked over, but Millona had been nothing but devout all her life. "Don't apologise. You have nothing to apologise for."

Her fingers entwined with mine. She leaned in and kissed me, gentler now. As her nails scratched down over my belly and down a little further still, I groaned into her mouth. She rose and straddled me, her hands resting on my chest, her hair brushing my face.

Now this... this I could do.

A careful movement of her hips and I was sliding inside her, fighting to ignore the rising fear that in the darkness, and with her face in shadow, she could be a stranger. Instead, I rose on one elbow to wrap my arm around her backside and pull her harder onto me. Her breath caught, ragged for a very different reason now.

We moved as one, and as I buried my face in her throat, she said my name – " _Corvus, oh gods, Corvus,_ " – and I wondered how I could ever have thought her a stranger, or feared that the gulf between us might never be crossed. Maybe our relationship wouldn't ever be quite the same, and perhaps we had both been fools to think ourselves untouchable, sheltered against heartache in our safe little bubble of early marriage, but none of that mattered.

We could face anything, so long as we were together.

~o~O~o~

There were more miscarriages. A string of them throughout the years, and with each one Millona's heart cracked a little more. But I clung onto that truth I'd glimpsed, and did my best to tell myself that I could handle this. I took over as many of Millona's duties as I could, as many as she would allow. I fought off the well-wishers who pushed a little too hard for details, warning them off with a glower of warning on my face. I very nearly threatened to punch that little witch Alessia Ottus when she dined with us, ungentlemanly though such an act might be, but bit my tongue when Millona caught my hand beneath the table, her fingers squeezing tight in a message of both warning and thanks. Spite and curiosity glinted in the Ottus woman's eyes, and no doubt she patted herself on the back and thought her questions were out of genuine concern.

I escorted Millona to the Chapel every week, even knelt at Mara's altar myself and supped the water as if I believed it might do a bit of good. Some claim the sanctified waters leave them light-headed, but while the water tasted very pure, it was no sweeter than spring water. I felt nothing, sensed nothing, and still I tried my best to pray. For Millona, for the seed I'd planted in her belly, for the hope that fragile little shoot might not be uprooted before it even had a chance.

If the gods were listening, they didn't care.

That shoot was plucked as carelessly as a gardener might pluck a weed. Another week of bleeding. Another chip in Millona's fragile heart, but I clung to her and gave her a safe harbour to return to until the squalls had passed.

And the next one too. And the next. So many that in a numbed haze I nearly joked to the steward that he ought to dedicate an account in the ledger purely for the replacement of feather beds. Thank fuck I managed to keep my mouth shut. I was numbed and weary and a little bit drunk but there would have been no excuse. Gods, if Millona had overheard...

Finally, three years into our marriage came a pregnancy we thought might actually stick. The weeks passed, and nothing happened, and while Millona was too fearful to admit it aloud, I could see the hope in her eyes. We set up a shrine to Mara in her bedroom, and she prayed at it three times a day, as well as her twice-weekly attendance at the Chapel of Dibella. And she began to laugh again, for what seemed the first time in far too long. I could see the certainty in her eyes as her confidence gradually began to creep back: this time, this time it'll stick.

It didn't. This one went the way of all the others. Another feather bed that would need to be replaced because neither of us could bear the sight of the tale written upon it.

And I was starting to get tired of being strong.

~o~O~o~

The light from my room spilled out through the open shutters, casting the shadow of a chimney across the slates towards me. Beneath me, the lights of Anvil spread out towards the sea, glinting like the stars above. I slumped back against the cold stone of the tower, my legs stretched out across the mossy tiles, and stared up at the face of Masser, at the sky strewn with stars. Faint lilac wisps of clouds drifted across the face of the moon. It was a beautiful night, crisp and clear.

From inside my room came a noise, Lucar Umbranox calling my name: "Corvus?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. Too much to hope I'd be able to go one night without some arsehole demanding my attention. "Outside, My Lord."

He appeared in the doorway to the balcony, frowning at me. "What exactly are you doing out here?"

I squinted down at the glass of brandy, running my thumb around the edge. "Getting shit-faced." And before he could reply, I quickly added: "Millona's asleep. The apothecary gave her something. She's unlikely to wake tonight–"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

 _Yes,_ I thought, _I do_. But I stared at him helplessly, my trail of thought lost.

"In any case," he continued, "that wasn't what I meant. I meant, what are you doing on the _roof_."

"Oh." I blinked and looked down across Anvil. "Old habits die hard, I suppose."

His brows knotted. "Exactly how much brandy have you had?"

"Good question. And one to which I'm not entirely sure I know the answer. However much it is, it's not enough."

"Gods." He closed his eyes, drew his hand down over his face. "Why don't you come back inside, eh? You're in no state to go climbing about over rooftops."

My gaze dropped back down to the glass. "You're probably right." And still it took me a long moment before I rose to my feet. The tiles were slippery from the recent rain, and there was a moment of vertiginous dizziness when I realised I was a lot drunker than I'd thought, and certain to slip and fall – and then Lucar grabbed me, and pulled me back onto the balcony. His hand slapped gently against my back as I slumped against him.

I pulled away, heat creeping over my cheeks as I crossed to the dresser, desperate to keep myself busy, to keep myself from looking at him. "May I offer you a drink, My Lord?"

"Please. But Corvus, enough with the 'My Lord' bullshit. You'll be the count of Anvil soon enough. And on top of that, for all our sins, you're my godsdamned son-in-law."

"I'm sorry."

He stared at me. "What in the name of all the Divines are you apologising for?"

I had no idea how to answer this – where would I start? – so I poured us both a generous glass of brandy, while he shifted the pile of books from one of the seats by the fire and sank down, accepting his glass from me. I took a gulp of mine, and wandered back to the window, feeling his gaze on my back all through the long silence. And when I lifted my glass to my lips I found it empty. I blinked down at it.

"You are not responsible for this," he said quietly. "It isn't your fault."

I shot him a look. "Are you sure about that, My Lord? Because I'm fucking not." Before he could answer, I gestured to the bottle of brandy. "Another?"

His gaze darted down to his glass, still half full, then back up to mine. His lips tightened, then he gave a shrug, held out his glass for a top-up.

"That's the thing about becoming a parent," he said as I handed him back the glass and sank down into the other chair. "Having children can be the most terrifying thing you'll ever do. It opens you up to joy like you'll ever know, but also to heartbreak in equal measure. And every bit of that will feel like it's your fault." He paused, studying me. "Did Millona ever tell you about how her mother and I came to wed?"

"Yes, a little. She said you married for love. She said..." Fuck. I was on the verge of crying again. I forced myself on, my voice a little ragged. "...She said that was how she knew you'd give your blessing to our marriage, because it was history repeating itself."

"Ha. Yes, that's right. We married for love. Such a beautiful story." He snorted and knocked the brandy back in one. "Shame it's a lie."

"My Lord?"

"My name is Lucar, Corvus."

" _Lucar_." I hesitated. "I'm not sure I understand."

He sighed. "I wasn't in love with Pellandra when I married her. In many ways I'm not sure I even liked her very much. When I looked at her I saw a wealthy young woman with powerful but weak-willed and indulgent parents. And she was infatuated with me."

"But Millona said–"

"Parents lie to their children, Corvus. I lied to mine, and I have no doubt you'll lie to yours in turn. You lie to everyone else, after all." He studied the surface of his brandy. "I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands. I'm a bastard. But then, I think you knew that already, didn't you?"

"I had my suspicions."

"I'm not nearly so fine a liar as you are, Corvus."

"You do yourself a disservice, My Lord."

He cast a thin smile my way. "Pellandra could see through me too. She could be foolish, and never more so than when she fell in love with me, but she wasn't stupid. I did my very best to hide it, but by the time we were married, she knew I didn't love her. And I'll never forgive myself for that. I told myself I was as good a husband as I ever could be, and I blunted my disappointment in the warm beds of other women and came home stinking of them..." He closed his eyes, raising the glass of brandy to his lips. "And then our son was born and everything changed. By the time Millona was ten, I think I loved my wife more than any man who ever lived. It's a strange thing. Sometimes the love that grows slowly from humble beginnings roots itself more deeply in the meagre soil. And when she... when she _died_ , and my son with her, all I could think of was all the years I wasted not loving her and the many, many times I betrayed her. And it broke me."

"Lucar..."

"Ah. There it is. I knew we'd get there eventually." His eyes, shining with tears, creased at the corners. "I failed my daughter, Corvus. She'd lost both her mother and the brother she adored, and her father, the one person she should have been able to turn to for comfort, was... _useless_. Worse than useless. She had to nurse me through my grief on top of her own and she was far from well herself, and that is another godsdamned thing I'll never forgive myself for. So..." He drew a breath, his hands shaking. Wordlessly, I stood, and poured him another glass of brandy. He nodded his thanks, and we sat for a while in silence, each nursing our own brandy and our own pain. "'History repeating itself'," he said, and shook his head. "You know what I see when I look at you, Corvus?"

"Um..."

"I see the man I should have been. The man I could have been, perhaps, if I hadn't been such a bastard at heart. You might be a liar and a rogue, and filled to the brim with more shit than an overflowing cesspit, but you're a good man, a far better man than I ever was, and a fine husband to my daughter, and I'd be proud to call you my son."

My throat ached. I closed my eyes. "I just wish there was something I could do."

"There is. You take care of Millona. Every moment that you can, and do your own grieving in the moments in-between. And on occasion, when you get the chance..."

"Get shit-faced?"

"It's what I'd do." He sighed. "It's what I've done."

It seemed he would leave without saying anything else, but on his way out he turned to me, and drew me into a hug. The smell of pipe smoke clung to his clothes, and his hand slapped lightly on my back, then rested on my shoulder as he drew away. "I'm truly sorry for your loss, my boy," he said, and when I replied my voice sounded broken and bitter.

"Which one?"

~o~O~o~

Millona was pregnant when her father died.

It was a stroke that took him, and no one saw it coming, although perhaps we should have done. We were both too wrapped up in each other and our own heartache. A maidservant found him sprawled half-out of bed, paralysed and mute, his eyes rolling with terror. Three days later a second attack carried him off. Millona took the news quietly, pale and composed, and without tears, even afterwards when we were alone. Outside it was a lovely spring day, the garden a riot of colour – trees laden with blossom, and the beds overflowing with flowers.

"I should speak to Voric," she said, her voice brittle. "I know Papa wouldn't... wouldn't want anything too lavish."

"I'll speak to Voric," I said, moving away from the window towards her. "You have some rest–"

"I'm not a bloody invalid, Corvus, and I'm sick to death of being treated like one. Leave me alone." She shook me off. and turned her back on me, lifting her gaze towards the lovely, insipid portrait of her mother, her shoulders trembling. When I wrapped my arms around her from behind she tried weakly to wrench away for a moment, then spun and folded herself against me. "Papa hated you," she mumbled into my shirt front.

"Yeah, I know."

"He thought you couldn't be trusted."

"In fairness, he was probably right."

"He changed his mind though." She pulled away, her eyes a little too wide and glazed. "I think he came to realise you were all right really."

 _'He was all right, really.'_ They'd probably write that on my gravestone. That or, ' _Well, he tried...'_

I brushed her hair back. "Everyone makes mistakes. One of my finest talents that, lulling people into a false sense of security–"

"And then they go and die on you."

"I'm so sorry, my love. Get some rest, I'll–"

"No!" She shoved me away. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm not tired? And it's not like it makes a damned bit of difference anyway. He was my father. This is my responsibility, and I know you didn't like him much, that you thought he could be a bit of a bastard occasionally..."

 _Probably because he was a bastard. And not just occasionally._ "He was still my father-in-law. And he let me marry you." I risked a smile. "Or are you worried I'll take my revenge by deliberately messing up the funeral arrangements? You ask me, I think he would have taken a black sort of pleasure in something like that."

"That isn't funny, and you shouldn't joke about it." Her lips twisted. "Although you're probably right..." She drew in a sharp breath, and looked up at me with wide eyes. "Gods, what am I going to do?" She spread her hand over her stomach in a protective gesture that was pretty much futile for all the good it had done us in the past. I caught hold of her wrist, kissed her brow.

"I told you, you don't have to do anything. Let me–"

"I'm not talking about the funeral. I'm talking about Anvil. It was never supposed to be me. It's too much. I don't think I can, not with... not with everything, and if–" Her voice rose to a high pitch, trembling with anxiety. "–And if we lose this baby too–" She broke off as the door opened and a maidservant froze in the doorway, weighed down under a stack of sheets almost as tall as she was.

"Out!" I snapped at her, loud enough to make her flinch. She gaped at me, and then spun around, fumbling for the door. She was close to tears herself, little more than a child, and regretting how harshly I'd spoken I crossed to the door and took the sheets from her while she stammered an apology.

"Bad time," I murmured. She ducked a curtsey and fled. I closed the door and dumped the sheets in a pile, kicked them for good measure, furious at myself for shouting at a child. She couldn't have been more than fourteen.

I returned to Millona and knelt in front of her. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"I have my suspicions that you might be about to tell me," she said faintly,

"I think..." I took hold of her hand, pressed her knuckles to my lips, "I think I've never heard such a steaming pile of horseshit in all my life."

She shot me a startled look.

"There's a great many things in my life I'm uncertain about, but I've never been more certain of anything than this, Millona. You'll be the finest countess Anvil's ever seen. They're lucky to have you and they know it. Why do you think the people love you so much? Remember our wedding? The county was virtually deserted–"

"We should have planned that better," she said, fretfully. "People were hurt in the crush."

"Your _father_ should have planned that better. If it had been you making the arrangements, you would have done exactly that. You'll be better than your father was and better than your brother would have been, and of that I'm certain. And besides, you've got something neither of them have–"

She shot me a weak smile. "You'd better not be about to make a joke about female anatomy, Corvus, because now is really not the time–"

"You've got me, remember? And I'm fucking brilliant." I drew her into a hug, and hesitated. "And as for the baby, we have other options."

It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it even as the words were leaving my mouth, even before I felt her stiffen and her breathing go still, the laugh choked off. My skin suddenly felt far too tight.

"What other options?"

"That... was the wrong way to put it. I only meant–"

"Stop prevaricating and tell me." There was a dangerous edge to her voice that she'd inherited from her father, blunted, but wielded in the right way just as dangerous.

I closed my eyes. "Perhaps it's simply not meant to be." My were words dull and hollow – I didn't even mean then, or more accurately, I wasn't sure whether I meant them or not – but I was tired of having to watch Millona suffer, of the awful inevitability of clots and ruined beds, of knowing that there was nothing I could do to help. "Perhaps it might be better if we stopped trying..."

Her face had gone white with rage. Twin spots of red blossomed in her cheeks. "Don't you dare– don't you _ever_ say that again."

"I didn't mean–"

But she was already on her feet, tripping over her skirts in her hurry to be away from me.

"Millona, wait–"

"Go to Oblivion, Corvus!"

I started to rise, but there was nothing I could say to her: not in this state, so I sank down and let her go, furious with myself. Of all the fucking moments to pick...

It was little consolation that her fury probably wasn't entirely my fault, but due to the heartache of losing her father on top of all our other losses. Not to mention her fear for the child she carried, because she must have wondered as I had about how the additional stress would affect this pregnancy.

I'd spoken badly, but my words had been one last crack in a dam that had been crumbling for a while. I'd triggered the flood, got the brunt of her anger, and my guilt at having hurt her mingled with a sharp little sting of resentment, because I hadn't even meant it, not really. It was just a thought that had been niggling in my thoughts for a while, because we couldn't go on like this. Wasn't it something we should at least consider, to talk through together, and, if necessary, to reject together? Wasn't it my decision too? Didn't I get a say?

Lucar Umbranox's words rose up in my mind. _If you came between Millona and her duty to Anvil, that's something she could never forgive you for_.

"Fuck off, you old bastard," I muttered, shoving myself to my feet.

~o~O~o~

I went to what had been Lord Umbranox's private study, having expecting that Millona might have retreated there to blunt her fury in work, but there was no sign of her. I called for the steward, and poured myself a brandy while I waited for him to slope in. I think he'd been expecting her too.

We began some of the preparations for the funeral, the simple details, ones that Millona could reverse if she deemed it necessary. I was careful not to overstep my bounds, and pressed aside the slow-growing resentment tightening its grip about my heart. While the steward made some notes, I poured myself another brandy, tilted the bottle towards him in a silent question. He gave a one-shouldered shrug, which I took as a yes and poured him a glass.

"Picked his fucking moment, didn't he?" I said, glaring at the surface of my brandy, the candlelight reflecting in the ridges of the crystal glass. "The selfish old cunt."

Voric bared his teeth at me. "Knowing him he planned it like this. Just to keep you on your toes."

I grunted. "Tell me something, one man to another. Would he have given you the nod if I'd said something he didn't like? Would you really have murdered me that day?"

"Well now..." He sank back in the seat and scratched at his eye socket. "Let's put it like this, My Lord, do you really think you're the first inappropriate suitor the Lady Millona's ever had?"

"Nice try. Not fucking buying it. Sorry."

"Damn." He studied me, squinting his remaining eye. "You're a lot like him, you know. More'n I realised at first."

I sipped my brandy. "Is this the moment you're going to tell me he was a good man at heart?"

"Him?" He snorted laughter. "Nah, he was a fucking bastard right down to the marrow of his bones, always was, and I reckon the same'll prove true of you in the long run. But bastard or not, he loved his daughter, true as anything." He lifted his brandy. "To his Lordship."

I echoed the toast and knocked the brandy back.

~o~O~o~

I found Millona in the gardens, sitting in the loveseat where I'd proposed to her. She lifted her head at my approach, her reddened eyes widening. "Corvus, I–"

"Shut up. Don't say anything, I–"

"' _Shut up_ '?"

 _Shit._ "Just let me speak for a moment, please." I dropped to my knees in front of her. "Millona, I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. Not for a second. I was only ever following your father's advice–"

"What advice?"

"To consider every option, even the ones you're desperate to dismiss out of hand. _Especially_ the options you're desperate to dismiss out of hand." I gripped her fingers and squeezed them gently. "I chose my moment poorly, and for that I apologise, but for what it's worth I'm glad you reacted the way you did." _Liar._ "So you see, I was honouring your father's memory."

She was silent for a moment, then gave a sharp little bark of shocked laughter. "Gods, that's..."

"A little too flippant?"

She tapped her finger against my hand as she processed this. Then: "I'm sorry, too," she said. "For telling you to go to Oblivion. That wasn't fair. I shouldn't have said that."

"Thank goodness for that. Because I happen to have been to Oblivion and I have no desire ever to go back." _Liarliarliar_.

She tilted her head curiously. "You–"

"Never mind. Long story."

"I shouldn't have reacted the way I did," she continued. "It wasn't fair of me. It was just... something went through my head when I heard the news..."

As she trailed off, I took my seat beside her on the bench, and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. Her hand rested over her belly, and I interlaced my fingers with hers. "Tell me."

She shook her head. "I can't. It's awful."

"It's me, remember? I'm the best person to share this with. There's nothing you could say that would stop me loving you."

She gave me a sharp look at that, a flush rising to her cheeks, then she glanced around, as if to make sure we were alone. "My first thought was relief."

"I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do either, really. It makes no sense, it wasn't rational, but I've been sleeping so badly lately that perhaps rational thought would be too much to expect." She shook her head at my look of concern. "I'm fine, really. Stop fussing."

"But–"

"Would you just let me _speak_?" Frustration ran through her voice, taut as a bow string. "The first thing I thought was, 'Oh, thank the Nine,' because if he had died... I thought perhaps his death might be the toll we'd have to pay for our baby's life."

"Oh. Oh _gods_..."

She closed her eyes. "And I was glad, Corvus. I was _glad_ he was dead."

"Don't you dare." My arm tightened around her shoulder, my voice low and fierce. "You were half asleep, and you're damned well right – you weren't thinking clearly. You can't punish yourself for some stupid little thought that flits through your mind at a time like that. I won't let you, and your father wouldn't have wanted you to."

"I know... I know..." But her voice was so slight I wondered if she really did know, or if she was continuing to let it gnaw at her. She was silent for a few moments, her ragged breathing slowing down as she calmed herself. I kissed her cheek, held her close. "I should have gone to the steward," she said after a while. "There's so much to prepare."

"I went. We've already started going through some of the details. Nothing's set in stone yet, though, so..."

She squeezed my hand. "Thank you. I think if I'd gone I would have broken down."

I hesitated, but talking about castle business seemed to have calmed her further. "He has a list of names for us, people who thinks might be able to take over the position of steward when he moves on. I have some reservations about some of his suggestions, but a couple of them are worth a look... But, look, I know Rory's my man, really, but I still think he'd make a fine steward."

She hmmed thoughtfully, and when she spoke her voice was a little stronger, more confident "As a matter of fact, I have my eye on Dairihill. She's sharp and has an excellent eye for detail."

Personally I thought Dairihill had an excellent eye for furthering her own main chance, but I'd sworn never to interfere. At least I could keep an eye on the little Bosmer sneak. I nodded, and let Millona rest her head on my shoulder.

Another brief silence fell and a breeze brought down a shower of blossom petals. Millona glanced up at me, and I lifted my thumb to her puffy cheek, then leaned in to kiss her.

"Tell me," she said, her voice barely above a breath when I drew away. "Just tell me you didn't mean it."

"I didn't mean it," I said, and couldn't tell if I was lying.

~o~O~o~

I never did make much of a count. I did my best, for Millona's sake, but I lacked the necessary patience to endure the endless stream of petitioners when all I wanted was to be with Millona. I resented every moment the demands of the city took me away from my wife. It's a strange thing though: while most in Cyrodiil saw me as I truly was – a lazy, disreputable scoundrel with little talent for diplomacy or politics – in Anvil that worked in my favour. They saw how much I loved Millona, saw that my anger and impatience stemmed from a deep concern for her and her alone.

I did my best. That's all anyone can say in the long run.

At the funeral Millona was starting to show, her dress chosen deliberately to hide her growing bump. We'd learned quickly not to announce our pregnancies officially, but even the slightest swell of a pregnant belly is unmistakable if that's what you're looking for. Within the day everyone in Anvil knew she was pregnant.

Three weeks after the funeral, she miscarried again.

It was almost enough to make me long for the early days of our marriage, when Millona's courses came on as predictably as clockwork, and we wished, more than anything, that she would only fall pregnant.

Well, we'd got our wish now, all right, even if it hadn't been quite what we'd wanted. But wishes that come true never are. You don't have to make a deal with Clavicus Vile to learn the truth of that particular piece of bastard irony.

~o~O~o~

Just before I turned thirty-four, Millona fell pregnant again. At first there seemed little different about this pregnancy. She rested, ate her way in fitful starts through the first months of early pregnancy, and in bed her sleep was restless. Her nausea was strong this time around, but we'd long stopped seeing that as a good sign, because so far it had provided nothing but false hope.

We waited, expecting the bleeding to start at any moment. The weeks passed, and every day I'd wake up and think that today would be the day we'd see the first signs: the barely perceptible ache in her lower back, a telltale brown smear of blood on her linens. And every day I'd shove the thought away in case I brought it on somehow through belief. I couldn't let myself think like that, but nor could I allow myself to hope that the reverse might be true. I was balanced on a precarious fence a hair's-breadth wide, and to lean too far one way or the other would spell disaster.

Disaster didn't come. Her sickness passed, and Millona began to show again.

There was no need to announce the pregnancy officially: Rory informed me there wasn't a person in Anvil who didn't know Millona was with child again, and they were all praying for us, news that gave Millona further hope, even if I still had reservations about the usefulness of prayer.

With the exhaustion of the early months all but gone, her energy and sexual arousal returned in a flood. Her belly swelled, her breasts rounded, and her waist thickened, and with each change, she looked more beautiful, despite the sadness in her eyes. I did my best to chase that sadness away, but I still heard her crying when she thought me asleep, and even when I pulled her close, she couldn't always stop. We were both of us waiting, but the weeks and months passed, and the bleeding never started. The baby clung on despite our fears. It continued, further than any of her pregnancies had progressed before, far enough along that she could feel the baby quicken within her, those first early kicks that she said felt like bubbles popping. Far enough that we both started to think this might be the one that would stick.

And then one night in our parlour, she gave a started gasp. I was sitting on the floor at the foot of her chair, a book balanced on my knee and a glass of wine tucked around the side of the chair. I tilted my head back, cautious, although the gasp had been one of excitement rather than fear. "What is it?"

She caught hold of my wrist and brought my hand to the swell of her belly. "Feel this," she said, smiling. "Wait, hold on... Damn it, why won't he move– _There_! Did you feel that?"

I hadn't felt anything, but her eyes were brighter than I had seen them in a long time, and all her sorrow had fled. I laid the book aside and rose to kiss her. "I felt it."

"That's our baby."

"I know." I brought my lips to her neck, and kissed away the lie until she caught her breath. A side-effect of this stage of the pregnancy: she was never too far from arousal, and as she leaned back in her chair, I wondered if we might not risk intercourse. But no matter how careful I was to be gentle, no matter what the healers said about it posing no danger, we couldn't risk it. We'd made that mistake before.

This was the first time in a long time that Millona had risked speaking of the baby as a possibility, stopped skirting around it and admitted aloud, that it might survive. So how could I have told her the truth, that I'd felt nothing but the faint tremble of her breathing? How could I have done anything but lie?

Yet it seemed an ill omen. I'd never thought of myself as superstitious, but a decade and a half of years living in the Niben Valley will do that to a boy. I hide it well, but I have a superstitious streak a mile wide. I can't pass a wayside shrine without leaving an offering – never coins or anything of real value (I'm not a fucking idiot), but I never take anything either, no matter how hard my palms itch. I avoid crossing people on the stairs if I can, and I have been known to engage a passing servant in conversation to make my discomfort less obvious.

I know it's bullshit. Mostly. But what if it's not?

It was no ill omen. Only a pregnancy too early for me to feel anything. Perhaps, I thought, as I kissed her neck, if she'd been naked... And I considered telling her the truth and asking her to let me try again, but by then it was too late.

The lie returned to me when we were in bed. Neither one of us could sleep. Millona struggled to find a comfortable sleeping position, thumping at the pillows we'd had ordered in especially from Balmora. Even if it hadn't been for the guilt gnawing at me, she would have kept me awake.

I rolled onto my side to spoon her, my hand over her bump. I closed my eyes, willing the baby to move, to do a fucking back-flip if that was what it took, because a lingering fear had taken root and started to grow.

There was no back-flip. Not even the slightest flicker of movement.

I closed my eyes, and pressed my forehead against the hollow between her shoulder blades. This time, I thought. This time for certain.

Except it wasn't, of course.

~o~O~o~

The screams tore through the air, each cry of agony determined to rip my heart in two. I paced the corridor and gnawed at the inside of my cheek until I couldn't bear it any longer, shouldered the door open and stormed inside. But the sight of Millona in agony in the bed was almost enough to pinch my raging fury out as easily as if it were a candle. I very nearly turned on my heel and fled, coward that I was.

Thank fuck then for the midwife, whom I'd never liked, and the look she shot me, lips pursing with disapproval. "This is no place for a man, Your Grace. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to–"

I pointed at her. "Unless you want to spent the rest of the week in the castle jail, I suggest you keep your fucking mouth shut."

"You can't talk to me like–"

"I'll talk to you however the fuck I want. I'm the bloody Count of Anvil and my _place_ is by my wife's side."

"But–!"

"Will both of you be quiet?" Qileel snapped. "This is hardly the time." She glared at me. "If you're here you might as well make yourself useful," but as she spoke, Millona gave an agonised cry, writhing in agony in the bed.

I took a step backwards, blanching, then steeled myself. Make myself useful, I could do that. Maybe. "What should I do?"

"Come here to the head of the bed. Hold her hand."

Millona lay sprawled on the sheets, the blankets rolled up and shoved in a corner. Her skin was waxy-white, and the muscles in her thighs were bunched taut. Her hand closed on mine like a vice, her grip tight enough to grind my bones together, and the rasping pain in my fingers was enough to make me cry out. I swallowed down the ache in my throat, and brushed her hair back from her forehead.

"I'm here, love," I murmured. She didn't hear me, and gave another wrenching scream, her back arching. " _Fuck_. What's happening to her?"

The midwife shot me a distracted look as she placed her hand on Millona's belly. In my fingers I felt a shivery itch, the silvery sensation of Restoration magic.

When it happened, it happened quickly. Millona's back arched, she made a sound that hit me a fist to my gut, and then blood gushed from between her legs, soaking the sheets. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut, but I could still smell it. I dropped my head to press my face against Millona's neck, her skin damp and feverish, ragged shallow little gasps as if she was clutching at each breath. I murmured something meaningless, a platitude that was supposed to be comforting, but she was well beyond hearing me, and even if she wasn't I doubt it would have helped. I forced my eyes open, and flicked gaze towards the midwife, bent between Millona's legs. I clamped my mouth shut, so tight my jaws ached.

"The afterbirth as well," Qileel murmured, and the midwife made a soft sound of affirmation, a weary little sigh.

"It'll kill her," I said, and they both looked at me a little startled, as if they'd forgotten I was there. "She can't lose this baby."

Qileel put her hand on my arm, left it resting there a moment or two, before she let it drop. I think it was the first time she'd ever touched me.

Millona's grip on my hand had eased a little. As the older women busied themselves, my gaze was dragged down to the afterbirth lying on the sheets like a slab of bloodied liver, and in the midst of it all lay a waxy shape, something that looked like a child's discarded rag doll. A broken little thing.

Millona's eyes were closed now, her breath laboured, as if she struggled for every breath. Her head fell to one side, and I brushed her hair back from her face. Her skin was damp and scorching. As the midwife set about her business, pressing her fingers into Millona's belly, the careless spillover of her magic turning my blood to molten gold, Qileel scooped up the broken shape and carried it away.

I worked my hand out from Millona's grip and followed, flexing my aching fingers. "Let me see."

She glanced back at me with no expression on her face, without so much of a twitch of her spines. "It may be better if you don't."

"Let me see."

Reluctantly, she moved aside and I took her place at the dresser, unfolded the little bundle of cloth. It seemed a doll at first, impossibly small, but perfect in form. It could have fit in the palm of my hand, and its hand curved over the end of my thumb like the cup of an acorn. Each miniscule finger was tipped with a nail.

It would have been a boy.

Qileel watched me, as I laid the arm back down, and folded back the sheet, covering its face back up. _His_ face.

I drew a ragged breath, and lifted my head. Qileel was talking to me, her mouth moving, but all I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears, the too rapid pulse of my heart, and Millona's uneven breathing from the bed. I stared at her, blinking too rapidly. Thinking it was the first time we'd ever had anything to bury.

~o~O~o~

The days passed. Millona slid in and out of fevered dreams, treated with the finest Restoration magic and potions money could buy, but it was touch and go. An infection had set in, and that's not always something Restoration magic can help with, since infection is a kind of living poison and magic risks making things worse.

Inevitably, the alchemist and the Restoration mage bickered like schoolchildren over the best way to treat her. Asking mages from two different disciplines to cooperate is like herding cats. It made me wish Voric hadn't already buggered off to Daggerfall, because I could have used his particular brand of believably threatening menace with those two pompous fuckers.

Dairihill was all but useless and Rory not much better, although in fairness he spent most of his time spying on Dairihill, who was using her countess's absence to slip some quiet changes through, unnoticed. I put a stop to them naturally, and made a note to have a word with Millona when she recovered.

And she did recover, thank the gods. Physically at least.

~o~O~o~

Millona's breath was slowing, evening out as she drifted back towards sleep. And still she stirred restlessly, fighting it. "What if this is it, Corvus? What if we can't... What if _I_ can't..."

I brushed her hair back from her forehead, and kissed her brow, her lips. "We can. We will."

"But what if we _can't_?"

I closed my eyes. What could I do but repeat myself? "We can and we will."

It felt like a lie.

I couldn't let myself doubt, and still the questions came rising up. What might have been if she hadn't married me. If she'd chosen a man more beloved of the gods. Someone less irreverent, less fundamentally wicked, someone who hadn't allowed himself to be fucked by a Daedric Lord for the sheer hedonistic joy of it, because it had been fun and he'd been drunk at the time and why the fuck not? Would she have a baby suckling at her breast? Another toddling on the rug beside her?

The ghosts of a litter of unborn, never-born children seemed to surround the bed, crowding in on me. I brushed her hair back, and lay down beside her, her back warm against my chest, waiting for her to finally pass out.

 _Gods_. I closed my eyes, and pressed my forehead against the nape of her neck, as if by doing so I could erase the memory of that tiny body in my arms. I hadn't told her I had seen it, or that it had been a boy. Not yet. Probably I never would. There were still some things I didn't think I could ever bring myself to say, even if I had sworn that one day I tell her everything. The memory of that tiny body, translucent skin, fragile and perfect and broken beyond repair: that was one of them.

A little boy. My son.

When she was asleep, I slipped from her bed, careful not to wake her, although thanks to the apothecary's concoction she was already well beyond waking. Her hair was a tangle, the covers half thrown back, and she looked like a drunk who had passed out. I leaned down to press my lips to her forehead and tugged the bedclothes back up to cover her. I strode from her chamber, and down the corridor, barely heeding the servants that greeted me, leaving a scattering of 'Your Grace's and curtseys in my wake.

The further away from her I got, the harder it became to control my rising fury. I clenched my fists, thinking that this had been the one fucking thing she wanted. The one fucking thing she'd prayed for, and the gods, the fucking cunting _heartless_ gods, couldn't deign to grant it to her, even though she'd been devout all her life. Instead they'd dangled in in front of her, only to snatch it away and almost kill her in the process.

And in the morning, which was a few scant hours away, I'd have to do the whole rigmarole of holding court, because Millona couldn't. Hours of sitting in that damned uncomfortable throne, listening to tedious backbiting and mock-concern for our losses, and running like a riptide underneath the sly curiosity about what exactly would happen if, gods forbid, we couldn't produce an heir.

Fuck that. _Fuck that_. I couldn't bear it. Not with Millona in this state and my heart still so heavy...

And still I'd do it. I'd do it because if I didn't Millona would. Because it was her godsdamned fucking duty to Anvil, and as I slammed into my private quarters, the door rebounding off the wall so hard it left a deeper dent in the already dented plaster, I thought that Anvil could go to fucking Oblivion for all I cared.

My chamber had the tidy neat air of a room that went mostly unused. The bed's covers appeared freshly made. I thought of the covers beside Millona, creased and rumpled where I'd lain on them, and wanted to punch the wall. Wanted to imagine it as the primate's smug fucking face. _Sometimes the gods have their reasons._

 _Yeah. It's because they're cunts. The whole fucking bunch of them. They–_

A noise. The slightest scuffle behind me.

I reacted on instinct and spun, slammed the figure up against the wall, my forearm wedged beneath its throat. Above my arm, eyes burned through the holes in the Fox's cowl.

My seething rage sharpened to pinpoint calm. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Hello, Corvus."

"You–" Tempted to jerk her forwards and slam her into the wall again, I settled for tightening my forearm against her throat. "What the fuck are you doing here? How fucking dare you–"

"I'm sorry for your loss. Is the countess well?"

"Shove your sorry up your arse." But my cold rage was already crumbling, cracks shearing through the sheer sheet of ice. I gave up, dropped my arm and turned away. "Get the fuck out," I said, my voice weak, defeated. "I want nothing to do with the guild."

"Don't you want to hear what I have to say?"

"What part of 'Get the fuck out' would lead you to ask that question?"

"Let me get you a drink."

"I don't want a drink." It shamed me how obvious the lie, how my gaze darted at once towards the counter where the bottles awaited me. "I'm tired. I want my bed."

"Wine or brandy?" A mocking pause. "Or perhaps you'd prefer water."

"Brandy."

"I thought it might be."

My fists flexed. _Fuck you_ , I thought, and turned around, opening my mouth to say something, I don't know what – to order her to leave perhaps, or to call for the guards and have her dragged away to the jails, even though we both knew they wouldn't hold her for long. I didn't do any of that. She looked small and slight, and had lost weight, I think, since the last time I'd seen her. Her shoulders slumped, and her eyes seemed to be shining a little too brightly beneath the cowl, as if she was on the verge of tears. And with my heart feeling as wrung out as a dishrag, I was too tired to do anything but feel sorry for her.

"What do you want?" I asked.

In reply she held out the glass of brandy. She'd filled it so much it was almost over-brimming. My mouth dry, I took it, swallowed down the first sip so it wouldn't spill. And then I took a larger gulp. The sweet honeyed fragrance promised arms around me, a kind of borrowed calm. It was a lie, of course, but it still offered a kind of peace, and I badly needed some of that. I badly needed sleep too, but the brandy blunted the worst of my exhaustion, leant me the strength to stay up, even if I rarely used that borrowed time to do anything but drink some more.

The Fox sank down onto the bed, her own brandy glass clutched in her thin white hands. The cowl made her head look too large for her body, lending her the curious proportions of a small child.

"You made me a vow once, Corvus. Do you remember?"

 _I was drunk. You can't hold a man to something he says when he's drunk. The province would turn to chaos._

I sank down into a chair, pinched the bridge of my nose. On instinct the other hand brought the brandy up to my mouth, and I breathed it in, let the scent of it settle my nerves. "I might," I said, slowly, "recall saying something to that effect."

"You swore," she continued, "that you'd help me if you could."

"Now really isn't the time."

"I know. I'm sorry for coming here. If I could have avoided it I would have. And I meant what I said, I truly am sorry for your loss, Corvus. _Jack_."

I snapped my gaze up. "My name isn't Jack any more. Don't call me that. And stop with the condolences. I'm about sick of them. Like you'd know what it's like to... to..."

"To lose a child? No, of course not. Whyever the fuck would I know anything about something like that?"

I stared at her for a moment, my anger deflated by the sharpness in her voice. "You're right," I said slowly. "I shouldn't have presumed. Did you...?"

"What, lose a child?" Her eyes fluttered closed but only for a moment. She rolled her lips inward as if tasting the brandy lingering on them. A memory flashed through my mind, too quickly to be recognised; by the time I snatched at it, it was already gone. "Yes," she said, slowly. "I lost a child. More than one, in fact."

"Then I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have..." My voice was uneven, the threat of tears like a river threatening to break its banks. "Look, I'll help you if I can, if whatever you want is within my power to give. I owe you that. But this... It's a bad time."

"My children weren't unborn babies, Corvus." She held up her hand as my eyes narrowed, my disquiet shading back towards anger once more. "I mean no disrespect, Your Grace. They were _children_. My eldest was nearing his eighth summer, and my little one was only four. How she loved her brothers. She'd follow them everywhere, copy everything they did. They professed to hate it, but I think secretly, secretly they loved it."

I shifted in my seat, discomfited by the certainty I wasn't seeing something. Nothing seemed to make any sense. "Was it an illness that took them?"

"They were murdered." Her voice was quiet, calm, without even the slightest tremble.

I exhaled. Somehow I'd known. A niggle of warning itched at the back of my skull. "Oh. Oh gods, I'm..."

"Sorry? Yes, so am I. The one who murdered them, he didn't make it fast. It took them a long time to die."

A flicker of a memory. A bloodied hand-print on a wall. And still she was talking, her voice weaving its quiet awful spell around me. "I have a chance to get my revenge on the man who did it," she said. "But I need your help."

"Anything I can offer," I said, "it's yours. But–"

"I need you to come with me. Now."

For an instant I was stunned into silence. "You have to be joking. I can't leave my wife."

"It's important, Corvus. And you did swear you'd help if you could."

Torn, I lifted my hands to my face, rubbing at my eyes. Then: "No. I'm sorry, no. I can't possibly–"

She rose from the bed, moved towards me with silent footsteps that I felt rather than heard, each one seeming an echo of my heart beat. A scent weaved itself around me, along with the memory of slick silken sheets beneath my skin, the scent of spice and women's laughter in the air. My mouth went dry as she knelt before me, her hands resting on my knees. The cowl tilted up towards me, and beneath it her eyes, desperate and pleading. "The one who killed my children..." she began.

My hands flexed. I wanted to take hold of her and push her away, but I was too afraid to touch her. How tired I was. How drained and weary. How lonely. I felt a muscle memory of my hands resting on another woman's shoulders a long time ago. Wet heat and knife's edge desire mingled with recent pain that hadn't yet mellowed to an ever-present ache. " _Get up_."

"...He was a vampire."

"I said, 'get up'. Get the hell away from–"

"I think he knows your mother."

My thoughts slammed shut. I flinched. A long while passed before I could arrange my thoughts enough to do anything other than stare at her. "That's..." I blinked again, dropped my gaze to her hands resting on my knees. Her slender fingers, her bitten nails. " _What_?"

"The monster who killed my children. I believe he was part of your mother's clan. Or he's connected with them somehow. I'm not entirely certain of the details." When she turned her face away, I reached down and gripped her head, and forced it towards me.

"What do you know about my mother?"

She shook her head. "Not much. Not much at all. Every so often someone comes through the Imperial City asking if anyone's ever heard of a boy who used to call himself Jackdaw."

"And you told them...?"

"Nothing. Of course."

"Of course," I echoed numbly. "When did they last come through?"

"Five years at least. I think they've given up. Assumed you're dead."

My heart pounded. And gods, what I wouldn't do to have that moment again, to have the chance to do what I should have done in the first place: shove her away and tell her to go to Oblivion. If only. If _only_...

But if wishes were horses, beggars would never go hungry again.


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: A warning that this chapter is dark, containing references to rape and scenes of torture and mutilation.**

 **Thanks to Tafferling for betaing.**

 **As always all comments and reviews are appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Seven**

' _On Our Order:_

 _Know first that we are no simple tribe of savages, tearing throats with the orgiastic abandon of our scattered, tribal brethren. Ours is a civil fraternity, to which we are bound - every one - by our dual hunger for flesh and influence. By the virtue of Imperial structure and bureaucracy, Cyrodiil has become our stronghold in the third era, and we suffer no savage rivals within our boundaries, reveal ourselves to none, and manipulate the hand of society to mete out our agendas.'_

– _Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum_

The door opened and Brey blinked blearily at me for a moment before his eyes sharpened. "Jack, what the–" He caught himself and broke off, shot a cautious glance over his shoulder. "I mean, _Your Grace_. What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Smooth as ever."

His gaze shifted over my shoulder to the Gray Fox, and his eyes darkened. "I know who you are," he told her.

Rumours about the Fox had already begun to spread, although the legend was not nearly so well known in those days, little more than a fairy tale, a still-shrouded myth. I'm not sure whether it's something I should be proud of, that it was I who began the task of dragging the name of the Fox out of the shadows. And of course, it was Hieronymous Lex (and may the gods bless that glorious, pompous fool), with his one-man vendetta who finished the job, solidifying the legend in the minds of those who otherwise never would have heard of the Fox.

She gave a stiff little bow. "I'm certain you're honoured to make my acquaintance, mage."

I pressed my hand against her chest, and pushed her aside, stepped closer to Brey who looked like he was thinking about calling for the guards. "Listen to me, please."

He shot another dark-eyed glance at her, then back at me. "I don't think–"

"Brey, I need your help. I need to get to Cheydinhal. Fast."

"Cheydinhal." He shook his head, as if to clear it. "Have you gone and lost your fucking mind?"

"It's important."

"Is it something to do with–" He broke off again, and gripped my arm. "Look, never mind that for a minute. I heard about what happened."

I bared my teeth at him. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised it's all around Anvil already. I warned you they were a bunch of nosy cunts round here."

"I'm sorry, Jack. Truly. Is Her Ladyship–"

"She's coping," I lied. The Fox fidgeted, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. Impatient, but hiding it as best she could.

"And you..."

"I'm doing okay. Look, about Cheydinhal–"

Brey shot a look at the Fox, his eyes narrowed again, then pulled me inside, and lowered his voice. "Jack, whatever the fuck you're doing here, take it from me... This is a bad idea. Go home to your wife. Is this Thieves' Guild business? I thought you'd given all that bollocks up."

"I have. It isn't guild business."

"Jack–"

"It's private," I snapped. He grimaced, and in his tightening lips I saw the moment he considered telling me to go fuck myself, saw too the moment when he took control of his irritation, a flash of pity in his eyes. I had to clamp down hard on the white heat of fury that flooded me, and wondered when exactly Brey had become the reasonable one.

"You aren't thinking straight," he said, his voice measured and calm. "You're still grieving. Go home to your wife, and whatever this is, forget about it."

"I can't." I met his gaze, my voice pleading. "Brey, I can't. This is something I need to deal with, and I came to you _because_ of Millona. It'd take too long to travel to Cheydinhal any other way. _Please_."

"Fine," he said. "Fine, I'll fucking help."

I sagged. _Thank fuck_. "Thank you. Gods, thank you." I glanced to the right, saw the Fox grinning at me, her teeth glinting white in the watchlight.

~o~O~o~

My stomach knotted and unfurled. I hit the lacquered tiles hard on hands and knees, my vision tunnelling away and my guts surging upwards. I wheezed and then hacked up a scant mouthful or two of puke, stomach twisting like a wrung-out cloth. As I sat back, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth, the Fox crouched beside me with an offering of a silver flask. Whatever liquor it held tasted sharp and perfumed, spiked with juniper and a bitter underlying herb I didn't much like. It burned as it hit the back of my throat. It was like swallowing perfume.

"Does it always affect you like that?" she asked.

I took another swig from the flask, and rinsed the spirit around my mouth. "Every fucking time. I try not to travel that way if I can help it." She held out her hand to help me up, and I let her pull me to my feet. "But needs must."

Standing was a mistake. A wave of dizziness threatened to crash over me, and the spirit wasn't sitting well in my stomach. Still I took another swig, before trying to hand the flask back to the Fox. She glanced at it, an eyebrow raised.

"Keep it. If I'd known you were going to vomit everywhere I'd've brought two flasks."

~o~O~o~

For a little while it was just like old times. We stole horses from the stables and road south-east from Cheydinhal towards an old abandoned fort. The night was a warm muggy one, and the wind on my face did little to help my nausea.

In a copse of trees I dismounted, my back and balls aching. While the Fox vanished out of sight to spy out the fort, I leaned against a tree and waited for the dizziness to pass and my stomach to settle.

Once the urge to vomit passed, I gave a low whistle and the Fox returned the signal. I made my way carefully through the trees to where she crouched at the edge of the copse, staring up at the fort on the hill. In the shadows the Fox seemed nearly invisible, fading into the darkness so perfectly it took all my concentration to keep her in view.

"Anything?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Seems quiet."

"Maybe he's not even there."

"Oh, he's there," she said, bitterly, and I bit the inside of my cheek, hard enough that my mouth flooded with blood, as I thought again how little I liked this.

The plan was to wait until dawn. While I stood watch outside the fort, the Fox would drag the vampire – this Valtieri – out of the fort, where the sunlight would weaken him. She'd outlined the plan when we'd first arrived in Cheydinhal, and even then, when I'd been nauseous and disoriented and not nearly as drunk as I wanted to be, it had seemed like a terrible fucking plan.

"You're welcome to come inside with me if you like," she'd said when I pointed that out, and I'd very quickly shut up.

Since then my opinion of it hadn't much improved, but I was the Fox's man, and she was the one risking her life. I was purely there for back-up.

 _Except you're not her man any more,_ a quiet little voice pointed out. I shoved it away.

Only a couple of hours to go until dawn. And then the Fox would get her vengeance, and I'd finally get some answers, assuming this Valtieri had any to give me. And assuming I wanted to know them. A tight sick sensation had been growing in my chest since we'd left Cheydinhal, worsening the closer we drew to our destination. I'd lived all my life without knowing the truth about who I was and where I'd come from, without knowing how to reconcile my memories of the woman who rocked and sang to me with the monster who'd butchered my friends.

Thing is, when you're dubious about the provenance of the stew you're eating, sometimes it's better not to go stirring around at the bottom – you never know what might surface. I'd eaten enough horrible stews to know that.

A creaking sound echoed through the trees. The back of my neck prickled. Likely just the wind in the branches, but then it came again, and this time it was a little louder. The Fox held out her hand to silence me, and stood up, drawing her sword in one swift movement. My breath stilled at the sound of rapid lurching footsteps. There was something here.

"Something you forgot to mention?" I asked grimly, drawing my own sword. The Fox shot me an apologetic grimace, as the skeleton came tottering between the trees, its skull swivelling on yellowed vertebrae, its empty eyeholes shifting between us.

I shuddered with visceral horror at the sight of it, but it was just a skeleton. I could handle skeletons, and never mind the traces of desiccated flesh still clinging to the bones, the hank of hair still hanging from the dome of its skull. My conscious thought shrank away, and there was only the sword in my hand, and the undead thing with its rusting battleaxe, twisting between me and the Fox with mindless rage, too stupid to know which one of us it should go after first.

We worked together, darting in one at a time to hack at its joints, then back away out of reach of the slow clumsy swing of its battleaxe. It seemed more like a dance than a battle, set to a scraping noise that it took me a while to realise was the grinding of the skeleton's teeth.

The Fox's blade bit into the skeleton's shoulder joint, caught in cartilage and bone, and tasting victory, I darted in, thrust my sword between its ribs and twisted. It made no sound, but in my skull a scream echoed, grating like talons clawing at the inside of my head. Whatever magic had been holding it together dissipated, and the skeleton collapsed into a pile of rattling bones.

The Fox let out a laugh, a glorious terrifying sound that filled me with heat.

I kicked out at the pile of bones, sent the skull flying to rebound off a tree. " _Damn_. I'd forgotten how good we were together!"

She bared her teeth at me. "We were, weren't we? What the fuck were you thinking, throwing all this away for something as ephemeral as true love?"

I gave a humourless bark of laughter and sagged against a tree.

"You all right?" she asked, stooping to snatch up the skull and toss it in her hands like a child's ball.

"No. No, not really." My bloodlust was fading quickly, and the sight of the skull in her hands wasn't helping. I uncapped the flask, and knocked it back.

"Still feel sick?"

I nodded, hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat it into the roots of the tree. "Could do with some brandy to wash this shit down."

"I'm afraid I didn't bring any."

I grunted.

She threw the skull aside and came closer. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I always could rely on you, couldn't I?"

"At least someone can." I closed my eyes, pinched at the bridge of my nose. My dizziness seemed to be getting worse, the nausea intensifying. Should've had something to eat in Cheydinhal after all, I thought grimly. At the time I hadn't thought I'd be able to keep anything down.

The Fox laid her hand on my arm. My eyes snapped open and she went still.

"I shouldn't have come," I said, my voice suddenly bitter. I forced myself to meet her gaze through the cowl. "But I never was good at saying no, was I? Not to you. Or to anyone really."

She met my gaze for a moment or two, then let hers drop. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and sad. "I really am sorry about your wife."

"Yeah. So am I. It was a mistake."

"Coming here? You already–"

"Marrying her." Tears were pressing against my eyes now, tightening the noose around my throat. I drew in a long shuddering breath. "One of the most selfish things I've ever done, in a whole lifetime of selfish things. If I had the choice again..."

"You wouldn't do it?"

The daedric runes on the cowl soaked up every scrap of the dim light, making the shadows that flocked around her seem darker, denser. And there seemed more of them suddenly, crowding all around us, spying on us. I thought of the tale told in _Purloined Shadows_ , of tree branches crowded with crows and rooks and ravens.

"That's the thing. I probably still would." I thumped my bunched fist against my thigh in a sudden fury. "Even knowing what I know, everything we've been through, I'd still fucking do it."

"Because you love her."

"No, because I'm _selfish_. She's too damned good for me. She deserves better than me. If I cared about her at all..." I trailed off. The Fox seemed suddenly too close. I could smell her, the sweat worn into her armour, not the gleaming glass stuff I had seen her in before, but worn and battered leather, well cared for but scarred as badly as I was. She seemed to be waiting for something. "If I cared about her at all," I said slowly, "I wouldn't go back."

The Fox was watching me. "It might be for the best," she said, deep sadness in her voice. "I've made that mistake myself."

"Your man?"

One shoulder twisted upwards. She shook her head when I offered her the flask. "I'm not sure I ever really could call him that, but he was as close to being my man as anyone else has ever been." Her eyes flicked towards me. "Except for you."

She was standing too close, so close I could feel her body heat, and underneath the smell of sweat and leather, the last traces of the fragrance clinging to her skin. I'd never even seen her face, but I knew that despite how pale her skin was her hair would be dark, knew it with such certainty I could picture it spilling over a pillow, knotted around my fingers. Her touch on my arm burned, and heat twined up through me like a coil of smoke, filling me with urgent need.

It wasn't just her hair. I felt like I already knew every inch of her body under the armour. I could picture her breasts, even feel the weight of them in my hands as I cupped them, and the grime caught in the crease where they met her chest. There would be a scar on her collarbone, and silvery stretch marks on her belly. In her armpits there would be tufts of dark hair, and the musky scent that clung to it would echo the scent of her cunt.

I _knew._ Every inch of her, I knew.

Not that I'd never played this game before – I might be a married man and faithful to my wife, but I was neither blind nor entirely lacking in imagination – but never with such certainty. I even knew the noises she'd make when she climaxed: no swearing, but soft little moans that would make her seem almost an innocent. And I wanted to hear her, wanted to see her.

I needed to know if I was right.

The need thickened, solidifying into desire, and my cock hardened.

How long had it been since I'd fucked a women, not for solace or comfort or the tedious necessary duty of procreation, but simply for the sheer joy of it? An easy question to answer that: it had been too long.

I kissed her. Crushed her against the tree. The cowl rasped against my cheeks, but as I reached up meaning to drag it off her head, she caught hold of my wrist. So instead I just ground against her leg, groaning at the sharp stab of pleasure. In that moment, there was nothing but this. I wanted to be as far away as I ever could be from the memory of that bed with its bloodied covers, my wife's cheeks wet with tears, the tiny body wrapped in a sheet. None of that was real. It had happened to someone else. A man who wasn't real, who had never existed. Corvus Umbranox's life was a shadow, an illusion cast on a wall.

I was Jackdaw of Bravil. I was a thief. And I wanted _this._

I hadn't realised until this moment how deeply I'd hated what I'd let myself become, how much I'd longed to be something more than a shitty excuse for a noble, a man pretending to be something he wasn't. This was what I was, and this was the woman I was always supposed to be with. The Fox. My guildmaster. Why the fuck had I denied myself something so utterly glorious for so long?

When she set her hand against my chest, I growled, and dropped to my knees to tug and work at the stiff buckles of her greaves with fingers that seemed fat and useless, while her hands tangled in my hair. It felt a kind of madness, but I told myself it was the last few years that had been the madness, my ludicrous infatuation with a woman who was far too good for me, and this... Gods, I wanted her so badly I started to wrench at the straps, urgency turning to desperation. The Fox kicked me away, and bent to unbuckle her greaves herself, while I took a swig from the flask, watching her hungrily.

There was an old bloodstain at the crotch of her linen braies, and something inside me twisted.

"Here," the Fox said and came towards me. I buried my face between her legs, and inhaled the scent of her through the linen, wild with desire. She twisted my hair around her fingers, and tugged my head back, brought the flask to my lips. "Drink it all up, there's a good man."

And how could I do anything but obey? I swallowed down every last burning bitter drop, right to the very dregs, and then rose, and pressed her back against the tree. I shoved my hand down past the waistband of her braies and she drew in a sharp gasp as my fingers slid inside her, and I hissed in her ear how desperately I wanted this, wanted _her_ –

 _No_ , the cuntish voice said. _You don't._ It might have been quiet at first, but it was starting to get louder the dizzier I felt. Against my cheeks the touch of the cowl burned.

 _You don't want this at all. You don't want her. She's manipulating you. She always was._

A memory of Millona rose up in my mind. Her ash-blonde hair spilling loose over her shoulders as she rode away. She was laughing, casting a look back over her shoulder as I spurred on Phantom. One of the good days. Easy to forget how many good days there had been in between all the losses and the heartache, and this was a favourite memory of mine, one I often revisited when it felt like all hope was slipping away.

 _What the fuck am I doing?_

And in the midst of my confusion, a dark little half-formed suspicion knotted tight. Breathing hard, I broke off the kiss, my arousal darkening, turning to rage. I jerked my fingers free and wiped them with a shudder of disgust on her braies.

Beneath the cowl her eyes flared open. "What are you–"

"Shut up." I grabbed her wrist, ignored her soft cry of pain as I wrenched it around. The guilt was harder to ignore but I managed. The calloused fingers of her right hand were unadorned. I muttered a curse and grabbed for her left hand, while her eyes fixed on me. That too was naked. No jewellery. No rings, enchanted or otherwise. I sagged. "Godsdamn."

"Don't you trust me, Corvus?"

"I'm sorry." I let her hand drop, rubbed at my eyes. "I thought–"

I broke off. Slowly, as if moving through water, I reached up, pushed my fingers under the cowl. She stiffened. "Jack, don't..."

"That's not my name."

There was a chain around her neck. She tried to tried to twist away, but I pinned her roughly against the tree and tugged the chain free. And threaded onto it, as I had known there would be, was a ring. A silver band, with a sapphire caught in a delicate web.

In my mind I heard an echo of Min's voice: _It makes people like you more._

"You bitch." And still my voice was slow, sluggish. As if I didn't quite mean it.

"Jack, I can explain–"

I snapped the chain, and the magical influence that had been clinging to me since we'd left Anvil, since I'd found her waiting for me in my room, fresh from the bedside of my wife, snapped with it. In its wake came a surge of rage and fury, both at her for manipulating me, and at myself for falling for it. I should have listened to Brey, who'd always seen things more clearly, when he'd pressed me to make sure I was all right. He'd seen something was wrong, even if he hadn't known exactly what it meant.

I lifted my gaze to hers, sickened by the sight of the cowl, but I was so angry it was easy to ignore. The lingering sensation of that thing pressed against my face made my skin creep. "How could you? My wife is grieving. We just lost our baby, and _you_ –"

"I did what I had to do."

My fist clenched around the ring. "I'd ask why, but I don't even care. You can go to Oblivion. You and the rest of the guild. Rot there for all I fucking care. If I see you, any of you, in Anvil ever again, you won't even see the inside of a jail cell. I'll hunt you down and I'll string you up and don't think for a moment that I won't fucking do it."

"I don't." Her eyes slid closed. I felt a pang of something which I couldn't quite place – not love or even attraction, but regret perhaps, for how broken she was. "I'm sorry. For what it's worth, it was important. I needed you. And you did give me your word you'd help..."

"I remember. You told me at the time it was a bad idea, and I should've listened. But see, here's the thing about me, I'm more than willing to break my word. Especially to you."

"You promised me..."

"Yeah. And does it really surprise you to learn I'm a fucking liar?" I shoved her back against the tree and stepped away. "I'm going home. I meant what I said about Anvil though. Don't you dare come back."

As I turned away, she caught hold of my arm. I thought she meant to pull me back, to beg my forgiveness, as if she ever gave a damn about my forgiveness. I was already turning, white-faced with fury, angrier than I'd ever been in my life, and all the more so, because it wasn't really her I was angry at. So angry, and all right, just the tiniest bit drunk, that I barely saw her hand flash forward, barely felt the flash of sharp pain on the back of my hand.

Little more than the scratch of a kitten. So slight it barely registered, and I thought the first wave of relentless dizziness a lingering effect of the ring, relentless as the tide. Then my balance wavered and I stumbled, landing hard against a tree. "What..." My voice was slurred. I shook my head to clear it of the bees that suddenly seemed to have invaded my skull, and my gaze came to rest on the Fox. I tried to say, ''What the fuck have you done?' but the words came out tangled, meaningless nonsense.

I fumbled for my sword, dropped to my knees as it slipped from my grasp and my world tilted sideways. The damp ground pressed against my cheek, bands of steel tightening around my chest. The Fox lifted her hands to her face, pushing them up under the cowl to press her palms into her eye sockets, while her shoulders shook. She was crying. She'd poisoned me and she was fucking _crying_.

 _You bitch._ I screamed at her inwardly, and as if she'd heard me she looked my way. Seemed for a moment to hesitate, as if she wanted to run, and then she came closer, dropped to her knee on the ground beside me, and rolled me onto my back. The world was bleeding at the edges, slipping away, and when she spoke her voice was little more than a shiver in my skull.

"For what it's worth, Corvus," she said in the moment before I blacked out, "I really am sorry."

~o~O~o~

My wife was weeping.

The sound of her tears dragged me from the clinging grasp of sleep, from my nightmares of wet sucking darkness, the shadows that I drew it into my lungs with every breath. And when I woke I felt her warm body in the bed beside me.

 _Gods, my love,_ I thought, _I had the worst dream._

I kept silent. Better not to talk about nightmares these days. She had plenty of her own to keep her occupied. She lay on her front, her face in the pillow, and still half-asleep, I rolled towards her, and buried my face in her hair, drawing in the scent of it, I let my hand play lazily over her naked back, the valley between her shoulder-blades, the nubs of her spine.

 _She's lost weight._

The thought was distant, sluggish, and maybe I'd had a little too much to drink. Maybe I'd been sick because I could taste the lingering trace of vomit in the back of my throat.

She turned her face towards mine, her hair a tangled mess. I cupped her cheeks and kissed her, murmured something soothing under her breath. She made a hungry mewling sound in the back of her throat, and twisted her body towards mine, her kiss, hard and urgent and hungry – the sort of hunger that hadn't been between us in a while.

Her tongue probed between my lips, and her mouth tasted of stale wine from the night before. Her hand snaked down over my belly in a way that made me catch my breath, and oh gods I couldn't remember having been this hard in a long time.

But this was wrong. Too fast, too hard and frantic, harder than I was used to with her. It almost felt violent. I broke off the kiss, murmured, "Millona, Millona, slow down."

She ignored me. Her hand closed around me, insistent. And despite my misgivings my head dropped back against the pillow, as I muttered an imprecation to the gods. She kissed my chest, took a nipple into her mouth, rolling it with her teeth and lips and tongue, and all the time her hand was working on me and not gently. She bit the nipple, hard enough to make me yelp, and I pressed my hand flat against her back, against her skin. Felt the rough scar tissue that criss-crossed between her shoulder blades.

It whipped me all the way out of the clinging jaws of sleep.

This wasn't Millona.

A strange woman. Older than I'd thought, her once light-blonde hair streaked with white. No one I recognised. Sunken eyes and a slack mouth with a weeping sore at the corner. Not hunger or desire in her eyes, but fear, and her hand still tightened around me, hard enough to hurt.

"Please," she whispered. "Please let me." As I stared at her, frozen in horror, she shuffled around, her movements twitchy and urgent in her desperation to please. She bent her head down, and I saw the stark outlines of ribs beneath sallow skin, saw her chapped lips parting to swallow me up. The stink of death clung to her, to the walls of the freezing darkened room, where no fire had been lit in the grate for a long time.

I kicked out. My foot connected with her chest, between her breasts. It must have hurt her, but she made no sound as she fell from the bed and hit the floorboards. She curled up on herself, shivering, and I wondered how I could ever have mistaken her for Millona. Her hair hung in matted clumps, and with her back laid bare, I could see the map of whippings, red and weeping, laid across ridges of old scar tissue.

"Oh gods, oh gods, I'm so sorry." I rose to my hands and knees, and went to her. She made no movement other than her body tightening, the scars on her back flexing as I knelt beside her. "Did I hurt you?"

A stupid fucking question. I must have, but I wasn't the first. Every inch of her skin was marked: bruises and bite marks, as well as scars.

She rolled her eyes towards me, cowed and submissive, then ducking her head in a wordless attempt to take me in her mouth again. I caught hold of her wrists, restraining her as gently as I could, and after a few moments of struggling she went limp and collapsed against me, shivering.

"She was supposed to be a gift."

The voice came from the doorway. I lifted my head and my mother was standing there, watching me. An ice-cold sensation shivered over me, but I was too tired, too frightened, to do anything more than stare at her.

"Funny sort of gift," I heard myself say from a distance.

"Call it a peace offering." She came into the room, her steps slow and cautious. Her dress was a fine Nibenean gown of emerald silk, and aside from the fact that she hadn't aged a day in twenty years I would have sworn she was human. Except them she turned her head and a momentary flicker in my vision suggested that what I was seeing wasn't necessarily what I was _seeing_. From what I knew of vampires, that meant she'd fed, and recently.

"It's been a long time, little love," she said, circling around the bed towards me. I felt like a fieldmouse that had been spotted by a viper. "And my goodness, you grew up handsome." I shrank away, my arms tightening around the stranger in my arms, as my mother leaned towards me to cup my cheek. "The last time we met I think we got off on the wrong foot, you and I."

"Can't think how." It still didn't feel like my voice speaking. "Unless it had something to do with you burning down my home and butchering my family and friends. Other than that you were perfectly lovely."

She laughed, a light delighted sound, and clapped her hands together. In my arms, the woman flinched. "Oh, my dear sweet boy. You call that witch who starved and beat you 'family'?"

"I had a sister too in that in. And friends. They're all dead now too."

"If I killed people you cared for then I'm sorry." Her expression was one of genuine regret, or a very close facsimile. You can't bullshit a bullshitter, but it was close enough I might have believed it if I'd wanted to. "All I ever wanted was to have you back by my side where you belonged." She held out her hand and my locket dropped from her fingers, catching the light. "And you know this is where you belong, Jack. Else why would you have kept this so close for so long?"

I felt a hungry treacherous tug in my heart. My gaze flicked to the locket, to her eyes.

"You must have questions at least," she said softly. "Haven't you ever wanted to know who you are?"

I closed my eyes, heard my own numbed voice ask, "Are you really my mother?"

"Of course I'm your mother."

 _Fuck_. "Were you a vampire when you gave birth to me?"

"No. I turned when you were a year old."

"I remember a house. When I was a boy. Back before I went to the inn in the West Weald. Was that–" I broke off. Something was wrong here. I couldn't see this woman singing to me. Not even when she'd been human. When I opened my eyes, her expression had changed, shifted almost imperceptibly. There was a tightening around her eyes, the slightest trace of a crease in her smooth perfect brow.

"It was in Skingrad," she said.

I stared at her for a moment, grasped for my next question and found it missing. "I don't understand any of this."

The crease smoothed away. "You will," she promised me. "Given time, everything will make sense, I promise you that. And time is one thing we have in abundance." She nodded to the woman in my arms. "I take it you don't want your gift?"

"She's a person, not a thing. You can't give people as gifts." _Except in Morrowind_ , I thought, and felt a sharp stab of anguish pierce my heart.

"She's a thrall. Mine to do with as I please and to punish if she displeases me. And she has displeased me most grievously." My mother held out her hand and the woman unfurled. Her every muscle clenched taut as if she was fighting it, and still she dragged herself along the ground towards my mother. The whites of her eyes showed with the desperation of a beaten animal, and my gut twisted with disgust as her hand snaked around my mother's ankle, and she pressed her cheek against the hem of my mother's skirt like a purring cat.

"Wait." My voice was broken: if either of them heard they pretended not to.

The blonde women held out her arm, the fish-belly white flesh puckered with scars. The inside joint of her elbow was ragged and chewed, and my mother bent graciously to receive, tracing a sharp nail along the veins on the proffered arm.

"Wait," I snapped, louder now, and my mother looked at me. "You said she was mine."

"Then take her back."

I hesitated, uncomfortably aware of my nakedness – my own scars. "What's her name?"

"She's a thrall. Would you name cattle?"

"I probably would, yeah. What's her _name_?"

My mother shrugged, twisted the woman's arm until she gave a weak little cry of pain. "Tell him."

Bloodshot blue eyes fixed on me through a tangle of greying hair. Hard to tell how old she was, but certainly older than me, perhaps by as much as twenty years. "Alethea," she whispered, barely above a breath.

I inhaled, gave a grim nod. "Alethea. Come here then.

She obeyed, slinking away from my mother with a backwards glance that made my heart ache. My hand scudded across the attenuated skin on her back as she folded in on me, and all the time my mother watched, her expression indulgent. As if this had all been a test and I had sailed right through.

~o~O~o~

The steak on my plate was still raw inside, like it had been slapped on the heat for less than half a second on each side, then served up with the inside still cold and seeping blood across the grimy plate. I usually liked my meat rare, but I poked at it with the warped twines of the tarnished silver fork and knew I'd be having my meat burnt to a crisp in future. Assuming, of course, that I ever got out of this mess alive.

My gaze dropped to my hand where my wedding ring sat uncomfortably on a ring finger more accustomed to nakedness. Someone (the Fox?) must have moved it while I was unconscious. If it had been the Fox no doubt he'd thought it a kindness, that his protecting Millona – or trying to: the tan mark on my left ring finger had a story of its own to tell – mitigated his treachery.

I poked at the meat again, then looked up, my gaze drawn inexorably to the pregnant belly of the thrall making her unsteady way towards the vampire who had called her. A dark line marked the path from her inverted belly button, leading into the thatch of pubic hair. I glanced at her face, and shuddered at the expression there, the fixed quality of her smile and the silent scream ill-hidden behind her eyes.

I jerked my gaze away, and it fell instead on another female thrall sprawled across the table, her dress opened to reveal a distended belly not yet shrunken back into shape. Her milk had come in; her swollen breasts were fat and full, and a man – not a vampire, just a man, with the same glazed expression in his eyes – was chewing at her nipple. And I mean _chewing_. She'd left a trail of watery milk along the table.

I looked down. Stared at the bloody slab of steak on my plate, my mouth flooding with saliva. Trying not to think about what might have happened to the baby. Oh gods, I was going to be sick. I couldn't let myself be sick. I tightened my arm around Alethea, who was tucked into my side, and fought my nausea.

And above us all, the statue of Molag Bal overlooked the hall, the candlelight reflecting in its black eyes. It was no bigger than a child, but on its gleaming black pedestal it looked much larger. The Lord of Rape, Father of Vampires, all bulk and savage muscle, crouched, with one hand flat on the ground. The other twisted back, fist clenched around the end of three chains, and on the end of each chain a collar, clamped around the necks of the faceless slaves prostrating themselves before him, submissive, terrified, adoring.

I felt a bit like cowering myself.

Aside from my mother, there were at least three other vampires that I'd counted, and a handful of thralls. No matter how I tried to calculate my odds, I didn't like the number I came up with. No matter what happened, how lucky I got, it was clear this wasn't going to end well.

Lyria leaned closer, a faintly mocking smile twisting her lips. "Not hungry?"

I shoved the plate away. "I ate on the way here."

Her smile widened. She leaned back, her hand curling around the stem of a wine glass. "I'm sure your appetite will return in time. In any case, I have another gift for you."

The vampire had finished with the pregnant woman, and was now watching us, his chin propped on his fingers, his eyes heavy with satisfaction. He almost looked drunk. I leaned towards Lyria, lowering my voice. "I don't want anything more from you. I want to leave." I pulled Alethea close. "And I'm taking my _gift_ with me."

"In time, perhaps–"

" _Now_."

Her gaze snapped up, intent and unblinking as a serpent's. "Do not presume," she hissed, and all around glittering eyes turned our way. Alethea made a soft, terrified little sound, and pressed closer against me. I fought the instinctive terror that rose up inside me and held Lyria's gaze.

"I won't be your fucking prisoner."

"You're no prisoner, Jackdaw. You are our guest..."

"Who isn't allowed to leave. Would you like me to buy you a dictionary because your grasp on the definition of certain words seems curiously lacking."

She stared at me, her eyes narrowed, then she gave a laugh that set my teeth on edge. When she stood I didn't give a damn about looking like a coward: I shrank away. But she only held her hand out, her fingers crooked. "Come."

 _Oh gods, I don't want to die. Not like this. Not at the hands of a monster._ "Where–"

"I think the time has come for you to receive your other gift, little love." Her eyes flicked to Alethea and hardened. "And this one, I'm glad to say, is very special indeed. I think you'll like it."

I hesitated, then stood, Alethea with me. Lyria flicked her fingers, dismissively. "The thrall stays."

I glanced around the room at the other vampires. "I'm not leaving her here."

"She won't be harmed, you have my word."

"I don't give a fuck. I'm not leaving her here."

My mother's eyes lingered on me, an emotion I couldn't read flickering in their depths. I had the uncomfortable feeling that it might be pride. She inclined her head. "Then send her back to your room. She can wait for you there."

I flicked my gaze over her shoulder, jaw tightening.

"As I said," my mother repeated, "she is yours to do with as you see fit. No one will harm her."

"What about the other... thralls? Will they be harmed?"

She didn't answer me.

Gritting my teeth, I turned to Alethea. Her eyes seemed a little sharper, a little less glazed, but they slanted away from me, off to the side. "Go back to the room," I told her quietly. "Wait for me there. I'll be back." I swallowed, thinking, _Maybe_. As she pulled away, her fingers clung onto me, reluctant to let go.

~o~O~o~

At every turn, the stink of death and decay. The tapestries on the walls might have been priceless once, but they'd been left to moulder and rot, any gold thread long since unpicked, leaving loose threads and mangy spots behind. Every window was shuttered, and draped with heavy curtains.

"It's not much," Lyria said softly, "but it's home."

Halfway up a staircase, my steps faltered at the sight of a portrait of my mother, seated with her hand resting on the shoulder of a boy of no more than three or four. His face was solemn, his hair and eyes dark. He held a tin legionnaire dangling by the leg, and his other hand was clutched in the fist of a girl a few years older, with the same look about her face. The boy's eyes were the same eyes I saw staring at me from the mirror every morning, only they held no pain, no loneliness. Only a challenge.

 _That's_...

The thought trailed off.

I shuddered at the touch of Lyria's hand on my elbow. Unnaturally gentle. "You didn't believe me, did you?" she said softly.

I pressed my hand over her mouth. A moment or two passed before I could bring myself to speak. "Who's the girl?"

"Your sister. Your true-born sister." And then, as my gaze swung towards her, my heart hammering behind my eyes and a question rising to my lips, she continued, sorrow in her eyes. "She didn't survive the turning. She lost too much blood and she wasn't strong enough. You always were the strong one."

I turned my gaze back to the boy. "If I was strong," I said bitterly, "I wouldn't fucking be here, would I?"

~o~O~o~

She led me to the dungeons, our footsteps echoing on cold stone. We passed by empty cells with rusting iron bars, the air filled with the stink of urine from the piles of rotting hay. And at the end of the corridor, in a room filled with torture equipment and the metallic taste of blood, something hung from a rack. I say 'hung' rather than 'hanged' because whatever that broken thing was it had to be an effigy of a person rather than something that could ever have been alive.

And I couldn't enter that room. I stopped and leaned against the wall, taking shallow breaths through my mouth. I wasn't sure I could stand much more of this.

A dark figure crossed the room behind the rack, and the effigy _moved,_ squirming away from him. Gods, it was still alive.

The torturer was a Dunmer, another vampire by the sharpness of his cheekbones, which brought the vampire count to five on the I'm-utterly-fucked tally. His arms were so bloody he looked like he was wearing crimson gloves. He regarded me with contempt, leaning against the wall. "So this is your little prince? He doesn't look like much."

"You might find he surprises you," Lyria said, circling around the rack. I glanced at the broken bloody shape, and away, to the implements on the table nearby. A small bowl filled with bloody clumps that I recognised as teeth. In the corner of my eye, Lyria set her hand under a chin and tilted the effigy's head up. Dark hair fell away, revealing a bloody gash of a mouth, hateful glittering eyes. "I don't understand. This is a woman. It isn't him."

"Ah, but watch this." The Dunmer moved to the table and picked up something that I'd taken for a rag at first. The manacled woman lifted her head, her swollen eyes filling with rage. Her gaze fixed on me for a moment, then she gave a cry as the Dunmer crossed towards her, the rag in his hand. Mewling, she wrenched against the bonds that held her tight, bare feet scrabbling against stone slick with blood and piss and shit.

"Hush, _sera_." He took hold of her chin, tilted her head towards him. "Let's show the people how _fascinating_ you are, hmm?"

And he tugged the Gray Fox's cowl over her head.

It was a strange sensation. Reality jolted around me in a way that's hard to describe even now that I have come to understand what happened. It felt like the world itself blinked, and when its s snapped back open, the woman had gone and it was the Gray Fox manacled on the rack.

My mother gave a sharp intake of breath. "I don't understand. What trickery is this?"

"Now there's an excellent question," the Dunmer said. "It's magic of a sort, but for the life of me I can't..." He pinched at his brow, and gave his head a shake as if to clear it.

"Your gift, Jackdaw," my mother said, turning to me. "You trusted her and she sold you out, for no other reason than her own petty vengeance." Her lip curled. "As if we'd _ever_ betray one of our own to the likes of her."

The Fox lifted her gaze to mine, and I felt a resurgence of my fury. In the midst of all my terror I'd almost forgotten. When I spoke my voice was cold and hollow. "Let her go."

"The little prince speaks." The Dunmer shot me a look of contempt.

"Hush Jack..." My mother rested her hand on my arm, and I wrenched it away.

"You said she was a gift for me. Fine. Let her go and leave me alone with her."

Lyria's gaze lingered on me. Something flickered in her eyes, and she smiled, inclining her head. "As you wish."

The Dunmer's eyes widened with anger. "You can't be serious."

"It's not as if they can go anywhere," she murmured to him, and glanced at me speculatively. "And they have unfinished business after all. Let the boy do what he will."

When they'd gone, I checked the door to make sure they weren't lurking outside. No flicker of invisibility, no prickle of magic. We were, as far as I could tell, alone. I didn't believe that for a moment.

I approached the Fox, and unclasped the manacles. Her body dropped like a stone, and she screamed in pain, shaking with pain, her breath coming in hitching gasps, her finger clawing at the stone. I gripped her shoulders and pulled her into a seated position, felt her shaking under my touch, as I leaned close.

" _Why_?" I demanded.

She closed her eyes, her head hanging limply. Every scrap of fight seemed to have drained from her. "I had to."

"That's not a fucking answer."

"It's about all I can give you."

"I thought we..." I stopped, shook my head to clear it. "I thought we had an understanding."

"An 'understanding'." She coughed, blood bubbling at her lips. "We didn't have anything like an understanding, idiot. You were a tool like any other. And if your life was the price I had to pay..."

"To pay for what?"

"To see the monster who murdered my children pay for their deaths. You remember my children, don't you, Jack?"

"I don't..." I closed my eyes. Thought of a cottage, with bodies sprawled across the rushes. "I remember"

She coughed again. "Good boy."

"So the evil nest of vampires double-crossed you. Well, there's a fucking shock."

A one-shouldered shrug. "Occupational hazard."

"One that's going to get you killed."

Her sudden laugh startled me. There wasn't any humour in it, but it was far stronger than I would have expected given how broken she was. " _This?_ This is nothing," she hissed through her teeth. "He's a fucking amateur. I've survived worse, believe me. I'll come through this and I'll make those leeches pay for betraying me. I'm going to nail that Dunmer cunt to a tree and wait 'til sunrise."

Her eyes burned through the cowl, gleaming with madness. So much madness I found myself leaning away from her with a shivery chill of fear, wondering who I should be more afraid of, the vampires or this crazy bitch in her daedric cowl.

I closed my eyes. I lowered my voice and spoke as quietly as I could. "Did they... do they know..."

"Who you really are?" She matched the softness of my tone.

I nodded.

She shook her head. "I've told them nothing. They know you only as Jack. They think you're just a thief."

I let out a breath, sagging. _Thank the gods_. So at least Millona would be safe, no matter what happened to me. It wasn't much more than a sliver of relief, but it was something. The Fox's mouth formed words I didn't catch.

"What?" I leaned forward, ignoring how my skin crept at the brush of the cowl against my cheek. Her breath was hot against my skin.

" _Hurt me_."

Her fingers curled in my shirt and pulled me closer. Broken she might have been, but she had enough strength to stop me from jerking away.

"They're watching you, you stupid fucking fool," she hissed. "Fuck knows why, but they want you. Make them think they've got you."

"No!"

"Then you'll never see your wife again."

I closed my eyes, my mouth dry, as I thought about my mother, watching me. That lingering feeling that this was all a fucked up test. And still... "I don't know what to do."

The Fox gave a sharp little bark. "I'm sure you'll figure something out. Experiment. Figure out what it takes to make me scream. Cut me. Hit me. Rape me if you want."

 _You'll never see your wife again_.

Her fingers released me, I rose on shaky legs and stumbled away. My hip knocked against the table, and I stared down, at the selection of tools, the carved wooden bowl and nestling amongst the teeth a pair of bloodied pliers. I pressed my hand against my face, and drew it down. "Oh gods, oh fucking gods."

And then the decision was easy.

 _No,_ I thought. _No fucking way in Oblivion._ I straightened up. "I'm not doing it."

"Then you've fucked us both."

I made a weak stab at a grin. "Maybe you should have a bit more faith in me."

In reply she dropped her head back. "You fucking coward." I stared at her for a moment, then when I started to turn away, she spoke again, her voice sing-song. "Cor-vus," she called, soft and gently mocking. I froze, turned back towards her.

"What the fuck are you doing? Don't use that name here."

She fixed her baleful glare on me, pulling her lips pulled back from her teeth. "I'm doing you a favour. You'll thank me when you see your wife again, Corvus."

"Stop using that name."

"Or what?" she spat. "You'll torture me? Do keep up, Corvus. What do you think they'll do to her? My guess is they'll thrall her like the others, use her as leverage to control you, and then, Corvus, _then_ , when they've finally grown bored of you – and the gods know that's inevitable, I got fucking sick of your bullshit years ago – they'll have their fun–"

" _Shut up_."

"But, hey, maybe she'll be okay. Maybe when they find out that all of her pregnancies end in bloody sheets and heartache, they'll–"

My boot slammed into her gut. Her breath gushed out, and she turned her savage eyes on me. "Attaboy, Corvus. You know this is what you've always wanted to do to me deep down."

I drove my fist down into the cowl, heard her nose crunch. Reached up underneath it, and twisted my fingers into her hair, wrenched her head back. She gave a whimper of pain as I hauled her upwards. Her gaze met mine, and I stared at her, filled with creeping dread at what she was about to say next.

"Is she waiting for you to come home? How many weeks along was she this time, Corvus? Or... Wait, was this one measured in months?"

I stared at her, pleading. "Don't."

"Well, then," she said, baring her teeth at me, her eyes gleaming beneath the cowl, "Let's put on a show."


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: As in chapter 28, this chapter contains scenes of torture and references to rape. Thank you to Tafferling for betaing.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Eight**

 _'To you whom We have seen,  
Stalking at night by eyes keen,  
Transcendent of savages,  
Sating thirst sans avarice,  
Your coffers stay stuffed,  
By social graces robust,  
None know your nature;  
save Us,  
None share your fate;  
save Us,  
None welcome you as kin;  
save Us.'_

– _Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum_

I slumped against the wall, pressed my sweating forehead against the cold stone, a tremor in my aching hands. At my feet lay a puddle of vomit and behind me a shape lay motionless on the ground. The only sound in the room was my rasping breath. All else – the sound of fists thumping into meat, of cries of pain and begging for mercy, while in between a savage voice urged me on – all had now been silenced.

 _Wait_ , the Fox had said, in between the kicks and blows. _Bide your time. You have to make them think you're interested in becoming one of them._

And, by the by, did I know there were ways to cure vampirism? And wouldn't I reconsider raping her? There was no easier way to make a woman suffer, after all, and I was a man; I ought to be capable of that.

 _Gods._ Gods. _What the everloving fuck?_

Lyria stepped through the door. I saw her stop in the corner of my eye, turning her gaze from me to the Fox and then back again. I swallowed, fully aware how I must look, clinging to the wall to support, trembling from exhaustion and terror and the agony in my aching hands. It felt like my bones had all been broken all over again.

As she came towards me, circling around out of my line of vision, I shifted my weight, trying to look less like a weakling coward, less like prey. And still I jumped when she touched me. I risked a glance from underneath my disarrayed hair, froze when she took me by the cheeks, but she only placed a gentle loving kiss on my forehead.

"Good boy. You know she deserved it."

I blinked at her, and the words I wanted to say dissolved. Instead I heard myself say, "Let me go?" and cringed at the pleading in my voice.

She smiled, brushed a cheek with her finger. "In time."

The Dunmer moved past us to the Fox and squatted down beside her. She whimpered, clawing at the ground with broken fingers and I couldn't remember whether I had been the one who'd done that or if they'd already been broken before I'd begun. He ran his hand over the curve of her hip and up past her waist. Then his ashen fingers gripped the cowl, and drew it delicately off her head.

My legs crumpled.

Only a woman now, slumped on the cold stone floor, beaten and broken and bloody, with bruises blossoming on her back. Nausea lurched up my gut and I started towards the door. The Dunmer's gaze whipped up at my sudden movement, but I couldn't stop.

Gods, I needed a drink. Ale. Wine. Brandy. Anything, just so long as it was strong enough or plentiful enough to settle my nerves. To calm down my racing thoughts so that I could think without the hammering of my heart in my ears, because oh gods, oh gods, I'd never see my wife again and if I didn't do what they want, be what they wanted me to be, I'd end up like the Fox, broken and torn and brutalised.

I'd meant to run from the dungeons, but my legs were shaking so much that I wasn't sure I could manage the stairs. Instead I leaned against a crate then collapsed against the wall and slid down it.

"Are you all right?" Lyria asked, her voice gentle and indulgent. As if she genuinely cared about my well being. If she was testing me, I couldn't tell, but the Fox had been right, damn him.

"I've never..." I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, took a shaky breath. "I've never done anything like that. I mean, I've been in fights... I've killed people... In this life you have to, but nothing... never anything like that."

"Does it frighten you?"

I shot a look at the door to the cell as a high-pitched keening, the purest song of agony, came shearing out. My teeth clenched together. "I don't think I hurt him enough," I said, and the venom in my voice shocked me.

Because it was true. There'd been a while there, when I'd been kicking him – godsdamn: when I'd been kicking _her_ – when the rage had taken over. Because the fucker hadn't shut up. He'd had kept on, in between the cries and the sound of the blows, urging me on, spitting insults at me, and maybe at first all I'd wanted was for her to shut the fuck up, but then it became more than that, because it was his fault: he'd taken me away from my wife when she needed me most, and it filled me with incoherent fury, with the urge to dig my nails into his wounds and rip and tear until she was nothing but bloodied scraps of a person. To silence him once and for fucking all.

Lyria was smiling. What did she see, I wondered, a liar, or someone telling the truth for the first godsdamned time in his life?

"Are you in pain?" she asked.

"Just my hands..."

She knelt between my legs, unnaturally close, repellently so, and I cringed away. But when she took each hand in turn, the Restoration magic flooded me. It knit together whatever damage I'd done to myself, chased away the pain... And, I'm afraid, it also gave me an unfortunate involuntary semi-erection, which she thankfully ignored. I'd had enough horrors for one day.

As she straightened up, I flexed my hands into fists, spat out metallic-tasting saliva onto their nice filthy stone floor.

She led me back to my room. She seemed pleased, as if what I'd done had settled something in her mind.

Before I went inside, I stopped and looked at her. "What do you want with me?"

"What I've always wanted. Nothing more than my son back by my side where he belongs. I want you to receive your birthright."

"You mean become like you. A vampire."

"Does the thought of the dark gift frighten you?"

"It terrifies me, but..." I hesitated and looked away. Sensed, rather than saw, her smile.

"But it intrigues you too," she said softly. "Doesn't it?"

My gaze whipped up. There was no need to fake the burning shame that crept across my cheeks. "Were you watching me? In there? Did you _see_..."

"Does it shame you? What you did? He brought you here willingly. _He_ came to us. I'd about given up looking for you, and then there that bastard was with an offer we couldn't refuse. He betrayed you. Everything you did to him in there he deserved. He deserves far worse."

"What's it like? Being a vampire?"

"Ah. I won't lie to you. It's hard at first, but I'll be here to help you through it. I think you'll take to it though. The embrace of the shadows, taking what you want. It's really not so very different from what I imagine it's like to be a thief."

I didn't answer, only stared at her.

She gave me a gentle push. "Go. Sleep on it. You have my word that you won't be harmed."

"Only bitten."

"No one will bite you, Jack." A flash of her teeth, white and even. Something glittered in her eyes. "Not unless you want them to. Sleep, my little love. You must be exhausted. Sleep. But do be sure to enjoy your gift."

Damn, I'd almost forgotten about Alethea. When I let myself into my room, I saw her lying sprawled across the top of the unmade bed, her breasts flattened against her ribcage. Her skin was pale and white and goose-pimpled, and her legs had fallen open. Her eyes rested on me through her tangle of her hair, urging me on, begging me not to. I looked, because I couldn't not look, and then I forced my gaze back to her face again. Her eyes weren't quite so dulled now. She was waking up.

I moved across to the bed and pulled the covers back up over her, tucking her up like a child. My hand brushed back her hair, and as I did so, a memory rose up in my mind, of someone doing the same thing to me, while the smouldering embers of a fire burned in the grate.

 _She has displeased me most grievously_.

"I remember you," I said, my voice low.

Her eyes remained on me, pain and fury burning in their depths. How could I have forgotten her, I wondered, this woman who'd rocked me and sang me to sleep and kissed the tears away when I fell and scraped my knee? This woman who'd crawled into my bed at the behest of a monster, who'd begged me to fuck her with words that weren't her own, a will that wasn't her own.

Apparently the day wasn't quite done with horrors.

I rose, turning my back on her because I couldn't look at her face any longer. The wardrobe was filled with clothing, the silk and fine fabrics of Nibenean design, all moth-eaten and garish to my eyes now that I was used to plain Colovian clothing. I grabbed some undergarments and shirt of teal silk at random, and dressed her as one might a child. When I pulled the blankets back up to cover her, she caught hold of my wrist. I flinched at her touch but there was nothing sexual about it. She tugged at me, insistent, and I lay beside her on top of the covers, still fully dressed. I rested my head on the cold pillow, and wrapped my arm around her chest, feeling like a child again. And like a child, I closed my eyes and tried to will us both home, not knowing or caring whether we'd wind up in Anvil or Skingrad, so long as it was anywhere but here, and the Fox...

Shit, I didn't know what to do about the Fox.

Her body was stiff against mine. She breathed out, made a sound in the back of her throat. A snatch of words that trailed off.

She was singing. I remembered the song.

I closed my eyes, and took over. "All the money that e'er I had, I spent it in good company. And all the harm ever I done, Alas! it was to... to none but me..."

Her voice was cracked with misuse. "My father used to sing that to me. A long time ago."

"And you sang it to me."

"You remember. You were so young, I didn't think you would."

"Only bits and pieces." I swallowed. "I thought... I thought _she_ was my mother."

"She is. I'm just the one who stole you away."

"To save me?"

She gave a low laugh. "As first it was because I wanted to kill you. To repay them in kind for everything they did to me."

I blinked at the nape of her neck. "Oh. Um..."

"But I couldn't do it. I might have been able to, if you were older. But you were so young, so small, and away from them you seemed different. You were different. You were just a boy. Even after everything you'd done."

Now there was a creepy turn of phrase. "Everything I'd _done_? What the fuck did I do?"

She shook her head wearily. "Doesn't matter. You were just a boy. You can't be held responsible for what they made you do, not when you didn't understand."

Nothing but dark swirling emptiness in my memories, and the feeling that if I went poking around I'd really fucking regret it.

"So I stole you away instead. It seemed a better sort of revenge, leading a normal life." She gave another bitter laugh. "As if we could, but for a little while at least we managed it."

"In Skingrad?"

"It seemed like the best place to go. I thought we might be safe there, thanks to the count."

"He's not a fan of vampires?"

"No. He has his own reasons to loathe them. And maybe we were safe there for a little while, but it was stupid of me to think we could stay hidden for long. Eventually they came looking, and I knew it wouldn't be long before they found us."

"So you put me somewhere safe?"

"Don't kid yourself. I dumped you and ran. I lied to myself, told myself I was drawing them away, but the truth is I thought you'd slow me down." The bitterness in her voice told me another story.

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care what you believe." But her shoulders were shaking. "Did they take you to the dungeons?"

"Yeah."

"Stupid of me," she murmured, "to think you were ever anything other than your mother's son."

"I'm nothing like her."

Her thumb brushed my knuckles. "You still have blood on your hands." She didn't sound angry. Only weary, as all of this had been inevitable. "Who was it? One of their thralls, or the man they brought in with you?"

I closed my eyes, thinking of the wet sound of fists colliding with meat. But it wasn't like it was the fucker hadn't deserved it, and it wasn't like it was the first time I'd beaten the shit out of a man. "The latter. It's a long story, but we have a plan."

"A plan?"

"To escape." Which was technically a lie, since the seed of opportunity the Fox and I had nurtured was nothing like a plan, but it would have to do for the moment, "We're getting the fuck away from here and I swear I'll take you with me. Even if I have to kill every last bloodsucking cunt in this fort."

Somehow she contrived to make the silence that followed sound disbelieving. "You're more full of yourself than I was expecting you to be," she said finally.

"Some might say I'm right to be. I can't help it if I'm fucking brilliant."

"And you swear more."

"Yeah, well." I shifted so I could see her face. "I'm a thief. And a damn good one. The prison hasn't yet been built that could hold me."

She studied me. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"You're damned right. My Doyen used to say – that's a Thieves' Guild thing – he used to say there's no such thing as an impregnable prison. There's always a way out."

"He sounds like a fool."

I thought of Sam with a pang in my heart, how badly I missed him. "He wasn't that at all. He was the sharpest man I ever knew." I hesitated, considering this, then shot her an uncertain grin. "I mean, admittedly almost everyone else I knew was a total fuckwit, but he was right about the prisons."

She rose from the bed, her arms tightly wrapped around herself. "You had something on you," she said, as she moved to the dresser. "When they brought you in. They searched you but they were looking for weapons. They didn't know what it was..." She cast a nervous glance at me, her eyes fearful. "I thought... I thought maybe I'd be able to use it for myself, but it might be better..." She trailed off, stared at me uncertainly, then took a few stumbling steps away as I sat up. There was something clutched tight in her hand, wrapped in a filthy handkerchief.

I felt a sharp stab of excitement. "Show me." And it was hard not to hear the bark of an order in my voice, and wonder if she wasn't right after all about me being my mother's son.

She came towards the bed, hand trembling as she held it out, palm flat. I reached up, unpicked the corners of the handkerchief. It opened it out like a flower, and nestling in the centre lay the ring, a silver band with its sapphire stone.

I gave a shaking laugh. "Son-of-a- _bitch_." She stayed silent, staring at me. I plucked the ring from the handkerchief, and closed my fist around it, mind working. The Fox, I thought. He'd hidden it on me, same as he'd switched my wedding ring from my left hand to my right. The fucker. The _fucker_. He might have betrayed me, but he'd still done his treacherous best to give me a fighting chance.

 _It's not much though, is it?_

Well, maybe not, but it was enough to be getting on with. And like it or not it was all I had.

Alethea was trembling, her lips parting as the briefly woken intelligence in her eyes began to recede. Carefully I set the ring on the dresser, heard her exhale as I broke contact with it.

"You should just go," she said, numbly. When I glanced up at her, I saw her gaze was fixed on the ring. "Get away from here as fast as you can while you still can."

"I'm not leaving without you. Or the Fox."

She brought her gaze back to me. It was, I was relieved to see, sharp again. "The Fox?"

"The man I came in with. He's my..." Guildmaster? Friend? Clearly neither of those descriptions was accurate anymore. "Well, he's a cunt. I'm still not going to leave him though. Or you."

She sank down on the bed beside me. "They called you Jack, didn't they?"

"It's not really my name. It used to be, but not any more. My name's–"

She hushed me. "Better if you don't tell me."

"You're probably right. Jack'll do then."

"The thing is, Jack, it won't work. Not if you take me with you. It's better if you leave me here."

"I'm fucked if I'm going to–"

"How do you think they caught me the last time I ran?" She took my hand, and placed it against her chest, over her heart. Her ribs were so prominent it felt like placing my hand on a washboard draped with silk. "It's something in my heart," she told me. "Something inside me screams out to them. Deep down part of me wants this. They wouldn't have been able to keep me as a thrall for so long if I didn't. You can't take me with you."

"Then we're screwed," I said. "Because there's no way in Oblivion I'm leaving you behind."

Her breath gusted out and she slumped again, defeated. Turned her back on me and crawled shivering between the covers. I hesitated, but it was too cold to do anything other than follow her underneath the blankets. I listened to her breathing, while I thought of Millona, wondering if she'd already woken to find me gone. And how long would it take her to realise I was no longer in the castle, that I hadn't just retreated to the Count's Arms to drown my sorrows. That I was no longer in Anvil at all. What would go through her mind when she realised? How terrified would she be?

And in the darkness, my voice was as quiet and small as a child's. "What you said before... what did I do?"

"You didn't do anything."

"You said... you said I couldn't be held responsible? That sort of implies, doesn't it, that I did do something? So what was it?"

"What's your life like now?" she asked instead. And although it was an obvious deflection I was grateful for it. "You said you're a thief?"

"I'm not really. Not any more."

"Are you happy?"

"I think so. I have a wife and I love her more than the world."

"Children?"

I closed my eyes. "No children. Not yet. We haven't been lucky..." And then I couldn't help it, I was crying. And she was rolling towards me, wrapping her arms around me, pressing her cheek against mine. She was crying too, and her tears mingled with mine until neither of us could tell which was which.

~o~O~o~

In the night I woke to find Alethea slumbering next to me, curled up like a small child. I rose to the chill air of the room and padded in my stockinged feet to the door, listened for a moment, but could hear nothing outside but silence. I tried the handle, half expecting it to be locked, but it door opened a crack, the hinges croaking out. I froze, my heart picking up speed, and when nothing stirred, I opened the door a little wider, enough to peer out into the darkness. The air in the corridor was even colder, which I hadn't thought possible. I glanced back at Alethea, but the shadows in the corridor beckoned me out to join them.

I slipped along the wall of the winding windowless corridor, the pressure on my ears making me feel as if I were half a mile underground.

Another shadow unfurled. Pallid skin and orange eyes shone in the darkness. It was one of the vampires I'd seen in the dining hall, fresh turned and still half-feral, sitting in the corridor as if he'd been waiting for me. I backed away and he followed after me with scampering little steps. I retreated into the bedroom and slammed the door, expecting him to throw himself against it. Instead he leaned against it. I could hear his clothes slithering against the wood, and under that a feverish murmuring that I couldn't make out. Something to be grateful for at least.

I grabbed the handle when it twitched, but felt only a slight pressure tugging at my palm – he wasn't trying to get inside.

 _Not yet,_ I thought, and desperately wished the door had been locked after all.

Alethea had woken up, and watched me from the bed.

"Looking for somewhere to relieve myself," I said, still leaning against the door. "Looks like they've set someone" – _something_ – "to watch us."

"There's a pot under the bed."

"It wasn't a piss I needed." Heart skittering, I stepped away from the door, and grinned at her. "But don't worry, the problem seems to have sorted itself. I just shat myself instead."

She let out a sharp breath, and sat up, staring at me with an expression of disbelief. "How can you joke about something like this?"

I shrugged, and wedged the back of a chair beneath the door handle. "Because if I didn't joke," I mumbled, "I think I'd have lost my fucking mind by now."

~o~O~o~

Over the course of the next three days, I explored the confines of my prison. I was welcome to come and go throughout the fort as I pleased, my mother said, so long as I didn't try to escape. They watched me, seemingly at random, one of the vampires or one or the timber-wolves that haunted the corridors, silent and unnerving. I'd think myself alone, then turn to find one of them nearby, watching. And mindful that I was meant to be playing the part of the willingly cooperative prisoner, I tried not to make my explorations too obvious.

There was only one door out of the fort that I could tell, and that was kept solidly locked. Of what windows I saw, many were barred and others looked out onto sheer drops that even I would have baulked at. And even if I was willing to risk the climb, Alethea wouldn't be able to manage it, and most likely the Fox wouldn't be able to either, not in the state he'd been in the last time I'd seen him.

Alethea had a little magicka, not much. Enough for a fire spell or two, but certainly not enough to fight our way out. I mused it over, fiddling with a bottle of ale, and trying not to let my thoughts turn to Millona, who by now must have realised I was missing. Did she fear something had happened to me, or did she think I must have deserted her without a backwards glance, without leaving her so much as a note? Gods, if she thought that was the case, then her heart must be breaking.

With some difficulty, I forced my thoughts back to the main entrance to the fort, the massive oaken doors, reinforced with bands of steel and the enchanted unpickable lock.

I closed my fist around the ring and brought my gaze up to meet Alethea's. "Who has the key?"

~o~O~o~

As I descended into the dungeons, a grating scream rose up to meet me. I stumbled to a halt, already shaking. The scream had felt physical, like a hand set hard against my chest, shoving me away.

 _You can do this_ , I thought, but chivvying yourself on doesn't work quite so well when you know full well you're lying through your teeth. All I knew was that I didn't want to see what was waiting for me in the room at the end of the dungeon. I didn't want to know what would happen there.

And, I thought, sliding my hand into my pocket for the ring, I didn't have a fucking choice. I slid it onto the ring finger of my left hand, where my wedding ring usually sat, and forced myself on.

In the cell, the woman was suspended from manacles hanging down from the ceiling. Not the Fox and I felt a shiver of disquiet, of something not quite right. Her black hair was a tangled mess, matted with blood and sweat, and I gripped the door frame to stop myself from fleeing. The Dunmer vampire stood in front of her, his head tilted as he studied his work. He had his back to me, but his stance had shifted. He knew I was there, but he didn't want me to know he knew.

I cleared my throat to announce myself and to make sure there was no doubt in the matter, then took a shaky step into the room, breathing shallowly through my mouth. He turned his head to watch me, red eyes glittering. The ring felt tight around my finger as a snare around the throat of a rabbit, and I was that rabbit, facing down a fox. Facing down teeth and claws and ancient hunger.

"I thought..." My voice was too shaky, but that was good. My terror was the perfect bait "...I thought she'd be dead."

"She heals quickly. Unnaturally so. It's fascinating really." He studied me a moment or two longer, then dismissed the possibility that I might be a threat. The blade of his knife hooked into the skin at her clavicle, and he drew it gently down in an elegant arc like an artist sketching out the bones of a painting. She cried out through clenched teeth, chains rattling as she wrenched away from the exquisite pain. "Did you want something, boy?"

And never mind the indignity of being addressed as 'boy' when I was a man of thirty-four.

"My... my mother said I had free rein, so long as I didn't try to leave. She said..."

"That you could come down here to bother me? Well, naturally. Because that's exactly what I need, a fetcher of a boy spewing up his rancid guts in my place of work."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw up. I just... I'd never done anything like that before. Not to... not to a woman."

"No?"

"Or to anyone really. I..." I stopped, watching the blade as if it fascinated me. The darkness of the blood against her pale skin, how the drops welled up and spilled down over her breasts. I clenched my hands into fists, and the Dunmer was watching me again.

"Would you like to try?" Cruelty in his arch voice, hunger in his eyes. I dropped my gaze to the knife, then to her. Finally back to him, and I rolled my lips inwards as I took the outstretched knife.

If I'd attacked him then and there I would have been dead, I'm certain of it. Another of their tests.

He watched as I turned to face the woman. Behind her, I ran my fingers down her spine, the ripped and ragged skin of her back. The scars there were quickly healing, already turning silvery. I touched her carefully, like I was expecting someone to tell me to stop. The Dunmer for instance, and my eyes flicked guiltily to him, but he had only taken a seat at the table to watch, his face impassive. And I continued to circle around, letting my hand follow her hipbone, until I stood with my back to him and could looked up into her face, and read the message in her glittering eyes.

 _Do it_.

I flexed my grip around the knife, and brought it up. Her body arched away from the blade, muffled begging coming from around the gag, but her eyes continued to burn. I set the point to her skin where her skin stretched tightly over the hip, as if the bone pressed out to meet the blade. The point dug in, not breaking the skin, not yet, then the pressure eased.

"Not so easy, is it?" the Dunmer said, his voice soft. He moved quieter than I did; I hadn't heard him coming closer. "A beating is one thing, but to draw blood–"

"I can do it," I said, my voice low and fierce. "I can, and this bitch deserves it." And still I didn't move.

"Would you like me to show you how?" His voice was soft and hungry. I shot him a look, and found him much closer than I'd expected, unnervingly so. I felt the prey's sharp leap of terror at the approach of a predator, but his demeanour towards me had softened: the ring was doing its work, combined with my natural charm.

"Can you? I mean..."

"Here." And he stepped closer still, pressing in behind me so that his breath was cold against my neck. I drew in a sharp breath at how close he was to my throat, and felt his body quiver in a silent laugh. His hand closed on mine around the knife, and guided it back to her hip, let the hook pierce her skin. Her muffled scream bit into me, her body shuddering with the pain.

 _You'll never see your wife again._

The blade seemed a living creature in my hand, a thing with a mind of its own. His pressure on my hand eased off as I took control, letting the blade take its natural course. Blood spilled down her skin like rain down a window pane. My breathing quickened, and when she jerked suddenly, the movement was so violent her feet left the floor, I flinched away, and found him at my back, unyielding. Nausea lurched up my throat, and I screamed inwardly.

 _Fight it, you-son-of-a-fucking bitch, you fight it, or you'll never see your wife again._

With my other hand I gripped her hip and held her still. My grip tightened around the knife.

 _Just meat_.

~o~O~o~

"What's it like? Being a vampire?" I asked, while the Dunmer poured us both a glass of wine from the ancient dusty bottle. The wine was vile, vinegary enough to make my mouth twist in disgust, but he seemed not to care, so instead of spitting it out I swallowed it down in two gulps. The woman dangled, her body slack, her head lolling. She looked like she'd passed out. I was fairly sure it was mummery on her part.

He took his time to answer me, sipping at the wine as if he couldn't taste how corrupted it was. "It's different for everyone," he said finally. "For some it's apotheosis. For others there's a..." He hesitated, and made a strange gesture, placing his pinched fingers against his chest and blossoming them outwards, "...an emptiness inside, like they become a hollow vessel waiting to be filled."

"With what?"

"Well..." His charcoal coloured lips quirked, and he brought the wine to his lips. "With blood, mostly."

I shivered.

"Are you afraid it will hurt? It can do. For many it's agony, but it doesn't have to be."

"It's not that. I've been bitten before. It was..." I hesitated, recalling a stinging in my neck, the corresponding flood of pleasure. My gaze flicked towards him.

Another twitch of his lips at the corners. "Almost sexual?"

I looked away, muttering, "Yeah," under my breath.

His gaze flicked towards the woman, and one nail clicked lightly against his glass. His voice was almost as light. "What was she like?"

"It was a man," I said quietly. "A Breton."

"Ah."

"If I do decide to become like you..." Involuntarily, I lifted my hand to my neck. "I don't think I could bear it if my... if my mother did it."

"We worship Molag Bal, boy. Such distinctions hardly apply."

"I know, I _know_ , but still..." I shot him a shy look, an uncertain smile. "It is a bit creepy, isn't it?"

"Creepy." He made a sound. Not quite a laugh, but the closest thing I'd heard from him that could be described as such. Shitting hell, the ring was working. "Perhaps a little."

"If it was you, would you want your mother to be the one to turn you? Considering..."

"My mother..." He sighed. "If my mother wasn't already long-since reduced to ash, the knowledge of what I've become would cause her to spontaneously combust."

"I've heard they're not too fond of vampires in Morrowind."

"Or anywhere really, but that's true. I made peace with my estrangement from my people a long time ago." He paused. "Still, I'm not sure what would have upset her more: my becoming a vampire or that I'm a member of an outlander clan." His posture shifted, a predatory movement. "Tell me, boy, are you asking me to be the one to turn you?"

"I..." I squeezed my eyes shut. "I just don't want it to be _her_."

It didn't take much. My shoulder dropping a fraction of an inch, the slightest bearing of my neck: a movement so small it had to be involuntary, although of course it wasn't. He took a step towards me and I flinched away, my terror very real. He caught my shoulders and then I couldn't move even if I wanted to. He shushed me softly under his breath, the sound arch and mocking and cruel. His chill breath on my throat, and then his lips, and the woman lifted her head, eyes glittering through her tangled mess of hair.

His tongue flickered out to lap at my neck, to taste me. I reached up to knot my fingers in his hair with a soft groan, when I felt the prick of teeth against my skin, not yet breaking through.

"Do it," I said, and felt rather than heard the growl rumble through him. My grip in his hair tightened, and then his teeth pierced my skin, wrenching a groan from me. The sudden stab of pain quickly ebbed along with my terror, which shrank away to a pinprick, overwhelmed by the joy spreading through me. It seemed to spread from where his hand pressed against my skin, keeping me still, and somewhere at the back of my mind a quiet, calm voice thought that this must be what they do to thralls. Except with thralls the peace and pleasure wouldn't last.

The smell of wine and blood wrapped around us both. He mewled as he fed, his fingers biting into the flesh of my arm, and the thought drifting through my mind that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be like them. That maybe this was what had been meant for me all my life.

A tugging sensation in the flesh of my neck. Teeth grinding against bone. And a flash of eye-watering agony. I reached down, curling my fingers around the hilt of the knife tucked into my belt. But they seemed too weak, too unwilling to obey. I couldn't do it, I couldn't–

I pressed my hand against his chest. "Wait," I begged through my gasps. "Please, not yet. I'm not ready–"

His hand gripped my throat, and he spun me around, slamming me against the wall so hard the breath knocked from me. Choking, scrabbling at the grip around my throat, I kicked out at his legs. My boot impacted with his shin and he reared back, seeming as serpentine as the Akaviri warriors in the old tales, eyes burning with hunger and rage.

As he lunged I brought up the knife, thrust it up and into the underside of his jaw. He coughed, nails scrabbling at his neck, and fell away. I collapsed, hit the ground hard, sobbing with agony. The blinding pain turned the world hazy.

Through the Dunmer's screeches of agony, a woman spoke. "I was beginning to wonder if your little floor-show would ever end. Enjoying it a little too much, were we?"

"Fuck off." I pushed myself up against the wall, taking hitching breaths. "Worked, didn't it?"

"Barely."

Alethea appeared in the doorway, nervous and ready to bolt, her gaze twitching from me to the screaming Dunmer still trying to wrench the dagger out from his throat. She took a step towards me, and I waved my free hand at her, still dizzy with pain. "The woman. Let the woman free. I'll get his keys." I took a glance at the Dunmer, grimacing. "Somehow."

I rolled to my feet, cast around for another knife, and found the hooked blade on the table. The Dunmer's eyes fixed on me, and I flinched at the rage in his face. He tried to speak, but could do nothing more than work his jaw and gargle at me.

I pointed the blade at him. "Don't fight us," I said, "and we can all get out of this in one piece." My hand rose to my neck again. "More or less."

Freed, the prisoner crumpled to her knees. She clambered to her feet, unsteady as a newly birthed foal, breasts and thighs streaked with fresh and dried blood and rage in her eyes.

"I'll... um... I'll get you something to wear," Alethea was saying, but the prisoner ignored her, and elbowed past me, snatching the hooked blade from my weakened grip.

The Dunmer threw himself backwards, scrambling away until his shoulder blades hit the wall. Faint noises emerged from his mouth, the sound of choked begging, as she gripped the handle of the dagger lodged in his throat. She didn't pull it free, but used it to keep him pinned against the wall while she brought up the hooked blade.

"You'll never know," she said softly, "just how fucking _lucky_ you are."

His eyes bulged and she brought the hooked blade down. Alethea flinched against me, pressing her face into my side. The Dunmer slumped, utterly still, utterly dead.

The prisoner studied him for a moment, then curled her hand around the handle of the blade buried in his throat. She tugged it free and straightened up, turned, not to me and Alethea, but towards the table. Rage still burned in her eyes, as she reached out for the cowl of the Gray Fox.

Things got a bit confusing after that.

~o~O~o~

I think it's fair to say the Thief wasn't smiling on me that day, but that's the luck of a thief for you. It can turn on you at the very last minute, usually just at the moment when you think everything's going to plan. I should have known better. I did know better.

As Alethea and I helped the Fox down the winding echoing passage towards the entrance of the fort, the lingering sensation of dread that I'd been feeling for a while built: disaster was coming, the disaster I think I'd been waiting for all my life.

Perhaps it was only my weakened state that stirred up the memories, but they seemed like ghosts dogging our heels as we fled up crumbling stone steps, past rusting iron gates hanging on their hinges. Rats darted out of our path, claws scritching against the stone.

I heard Brandt's voice, quiet but distinct, growling, _They're coming for you, boy_ ; saw Elise kneeling in black mirrored waters and a bandit's hard-eyed stare raking over me; clutched a blade tight in my trembling hand as a woman's throat waited for the kiss of the blade. And finally saw my wife's fingers black with blood, and her gaze turned up towards me, pleading. As if it were my fault. As if I could have stopped from happening, if I'd only tried a little harder.

"Gods..." I couldn't go any further. I stumbled on the last step, and collapsed against the stone bannister, gasping. The Fox muttered a curse, and Alethea spat something at her, but their voices seemed very distant. I couldn't make out what either of them had said.

"I think–" I pressed my hand against the stone bannister and tried to push myself up. "I think you'd better go on without me."

"Don't be a fool." Alethea wrapped her arms around me, trying to help me up. "You're fine," she was saying, "You're fine. You've only been bitten. We can cure that. I can't carry him on my own."

" _Her_ ," the Fox said, sourly, but I'm not sure either of us really heard her.

I gripped her arm, gazed up into her face. "You have to tell my wife," I begged her. "Tell her I didn't mean to leave. Tell her I love her. Tell her she's all the world I ever wanted. Tell her I'm sorry.

She gripped my shirt and hauled on me. "Tell her yourself."

There was a soft sound in the corridor we'd come along, the scratch of claws on stone. A timber-wolf, motionless in the gloom, eyes in shadow, the twitching carcass of a rat in its jaws. It made no move towards us, made no move away. Only stood and watched.

"Jack," Alethea begged, "we have to move. _Now_."

~o~O~o~

We'd expected the thrall. It was one of the men, tough and battle-scarred, with the look of an ex-legion soldier. Althea had told me about what it meant to be a thrall, although I doubt anything she said could have assuaged my guilt one whit at the thought of having to kill an innocent. There was no stopping them, she'd told me, it was a kindness to kill then, and they'd protect their masters to their dying breath because they had no choice. That they'd willingly do terrible things, again because they had no other choice, and here she'd paused, an old bitter darkness crossing her expression.

The Fox's cowl lifted. "Listen to her, Jack. She's right."

"Shut up."

A mocking glint in her eyes, the blood drying sticky on her clothes. "You know she's right."

"We're not killing innocent people," I'd said, while Alethea stared at the Fox with naked disgust and loathing.

"Haven't you learned anything yet?" the Fox had said, as she pushed herself away from the wall. "There's no such thing as an innocent person."

And I'd known that it wasn't the thrall she was talking about, but me. Because hadn't I beaten her bloody not so very long ago? I might very nearly have killed her if the nausea hadn't proved too much for me, and for all my qualms I'd hack down every single thrall standing between me and freedom if that was what it took. I'd do it, and willingly.

We were expecting the thrall, but we weren't expecting the vampire. I smelled it before we rounded the corner, too weak and exhausted to stay our momentum in time, the stink of soured milk and hot iron that clung to the near-feral feeding from the body of the thrall like a leech in its black robes. It had its back to us, thank the gods, so it didn't see us when it lifted its head. Its throat flexed as it swallowed down the rest of what was in its mouth and gave the air a tentative sniff.

We backed around the corner, pressed close to the wall. The Fox bent double, a raspy sound to her breathing I didn't like.

Alethea met my gaze over the top of the cowl, the message in her eyes: _Did he see us?_

I gave a shake of my head: _Don't think so_. But my chest felt hollow, filled with ice, as I waited for the vampire to drop its head again, continue feeding. If it was distracted... Slowly, I started to peek around the edge of the wall, thanking the gods for the darkness. Alethea caught my wrist, and mouthed, _Don't_.

The vampire sniffed at the air, rising from its crouch. Its gaze shot towards us and I jerked back out of sight, heart hammering. The ice in my chest spread, threading through my veins. I felt so weak; even holding the blade took effort.

We weren't getting out of this alive. What a damn fool I was for even thinking it a possibility.

"At least," the Fox observed softly, "You don't have to worry about killing the thrall."

I gritted my teeth. "Silver linings, eh?"

Alethea turned towards me. "Listen to me, Jack. Alone you might have a chance. When I say so, you run–."

"Don't be fucking stupid." I hissed, and the Fox looked up sharply as if she agreed with me. I could hear the vampire drawing closer, the almost-imperceptible scuff of its boots on the stone. It knew we were there; it just didn't know quite where. "I'm not leaving either of you."

"Then I'll make this easy for you," Alethea said. She was already moving before I realised when she meant to do, and my reflexes were too sluggish, too slow.

She buried the blade deep in the Gray Fox's gut. The Fox gave a grunt of startled pain, and doubled up, her gaze flashing down, and then back up to Alethea, shock and disbelief in her eyes.

"You bitch!" She coughed out blood, as Alethea jerked the dagger free, and I threw myself between them.

"Yeah, well..." Alethia said, stumbling back. "Takes one to know one." She looked up at me, her eyes wild as I gripped her arm. "She'll die now, Jack. That wound will kill her. No point trying to save her–"

The Fox slipped in her own blood. "You've no idea," she spat. "No fucking clue–"

Alethea ignored her, was already backing away, her eyes bright and wild and half-mad. _Thralled,_ I thought, dazed. She was still half-thralled: not to the vampires, but to _me_. I grabbed at her. "No, no, no. Wait– Please, don't. Wait!"

She pressed her lips to my forehead and wrenched away. It didn't take much to break my grip, since I was still weak as a kitten. As she fled, I moved without conscious thought, throwing myself forwards as the feral raced past me. It was, I came to realise later, a stupid thing to do. I could have done exactly what Alethea intended for me to do, and as much as I would have loathed myself for abandoning them both, if I had the choice again, I would have fucking done it.

The feral had been intent on nothing but chasing down fleeing prey, but at my movement it twisted towards me, snarling. Alethea screamed my name, and a surge of flame streaked down the corridor towards me and enveloped the feral. It stumbled, wreathed in flames, clawing at itself. Crazed with pain and fury, it came at me, lips peeled back from blackened gums, and heat enveloped me as it knocked me to the ground.

The click of snapping teeth, spittle on my face, nothing but rage and terror and fury, and the knife in my hand.

I screamed, stabbing upwards, blindly, wildly. Seized my chance when it recoiled from the blade, hissing and bucking like an angry cat. I rolled on top of it, gripped its greasy hair to stop it lashing about, and brought the blade down. I wanted to bite and rip and tear and _feast_ and the vampire's high-pitched screams drilled into my skull. They filled me with a keening song of blood-lust until they were cut short.

The sudden silence seemed like the buzzing of wasps. My attention focused on the hot stink of blood, my thirst needle-sharp.

Lyria had arrived.

She stood in the corridor, her fist tight around Alethea's throat, and the expression on her face was not anger, but something worse: sorrow, disappointment, _hurt_.

"Why, Jack?" she said, as if I were a naughty child, sneaking a freshly baked sweetroll that was supposed to be a treat for after dinner. "Haven't I been reasonable?"

I felt no fear, although I probably should have done. Maybe it was there somewhere, although I don't remember it. At that moment the only emotion I felt was rage, burning through me like a wildfire as I staggered to my feet and pointed the dripping blade at Lyria.

"Let her go."

My mother's head tilted as if she was considering my request. Then: "No."

"You swore..." I took a shaky breath, fighting the urge to fling myself at her. "You swore she wouldn't be harmed."

"And you swore you wouldn't try to escape. You broke my heart, little love. I trusted you."

"You kept me prisoner."

"I gave you the run of the fort. And you repay me by killing two of my own." Her gaze flitted to the crumpled Fox, and she sneered. "By siding with that."

And finally, finally, my rage was ebbing, because Lyria had tightened her grip around Alethea's throat. "I'm sorry. Please... just don't hurt her. You can do whatever the fuck you like to the Fox, just don't hurt Alethea."

The Fox gave a bitter snort. "Now there's loyalty,"

" _Thieves,"_ Lyria spat. "Thieves and assassins and criminals. And people call us monsters." My mother's white-faced fury rolled off her in waves. With every pulsing stab of pain in my neck, the hot bright smell of blood in the air thickened. "It's time you learned, little love, that actions have consequences."

She buried her teeth in Alethea's neck, and ripped her throat open with a gouting spurt of blood.

Memories flashed through my mind: toy soldiers lined up on a warm stone hearth. A woman hanging up my nightshirt to dry over the fire, and how she paused to tousle my hair and warn me not to sit too close to the fire, and I murmured, _I won't, Mama_ , even though my cheeks were already scorched from the flames.

Too late. Too _late_.

Lyria threw the body aside, and gestured at me. The magic hit me like a surging tide, not the blood-searing thrill of Destruction magic, but something subtler, more insidious. A moment later the terror hit me. Stark and savage and all-encompassing.

My legs crumpled and I screamed, cowering away from her. It tangled all about me like a thicket, terror and shame and the loosening of my bowels (thankfully I'd had the sense to go for a shit beforehand), the memory of my gibbering voice as I begged for mercy, mercy, please don't hurt me, clawing myself away down the corridor. Even then I knew it wasn't real, that it was naught but an illusion, glossy and fragile as a pane of glass, and just as easily smashed had I only the guts to fight it.

But I didn't have the guts. I was a boy again, a frightened child, and the air was thick with the scent of death and the walls were closing in. The floor seemed to writhe against me, not cold, gritty stone, but waxy lifeless flesh, and if I touched my face I knew I'd find nothing but a flat expanse of skin, my eyes and mouth patched over, my nose flattened down.

I was nothing but a frightened boy who'd let his sisters, and now his mother, die.

Lyria came towards me. She no longer looked human but a monster, the flesh shrinking away from her bones, her shoulders hunching, and all my cries for mercy only spurred her on.

The Fox rose up behind her, and wrapped an arm around Lyria's throat. "He's not the only one who has to learn that particular lesson," she hissed and drew the hooked blade of the knife across Lyria's throat in one swift movement.

As Lyria crumpled, the Fox reached down to grip my hand, shooting a glance along the corridor.

"We have to run."

~o~O~o~

We fled deeper into the fort, up an endless spiralling staircase, dragging each other on, and flung ourselves through the doorway of a store room midway up the tower. I flung myself against the door, slamming it shut as a body – a thrall, I think, but I couldn't be certain – thumped into it. I dropped the dead bolt into position, then spun around and moved to the shuttered window. The Fox had collapsed against the wall, clutching her stomach. I unlatched the window and leaned out, gauging the drop to the stone walkway below. It was far enough to give me pause if our circumstances weren't so straitened, but right now I'd be willing to risk it. With the snarls of bloodlust coming from the corridor, I would have risked a drop three times as far. As for the Fox–

Something grabbed my arm. One of the vampires had clambered out of the window of the adjoining room, and clung to the wall beside me, her reddened skin already blistering from the sunlight, She jerked her hand and had me half out of the window before my wits returned and I caught my hip against the window frame. She hissed, hooked her arm inside the window, and hauled on me hard enough that I thought she'd wrench my arm right out of its socket.

I whipped my head around and bit her upper arm, ground my teeth ground past meat and into bone, trying not to think about how I was biting a dead thing. The blood in my mouth had a tainted reek, like meat on the turn.

The vampire shrieked and battered at my head and I bit harder. She fell, almost dragging me the rest of the way out the window. I caught myself on the ledge just in time, spat the blood from my mouth.

She hit the ground below with a sound like like a meat tenderiser thwacking into a slab of steak. I flinched, still dangling out of the window, certain for a moment that she had to be dead.

Not dead.

She sprang up, her body half-broken, and flung herself up the wall towards me, climbing like no natural thing could.

My eyes flared open in terror. " _Fuuuuck_."

Scrabbling at the window frame for purchase, I dragged myself back inside. I grabbed for the shutters and jerked them shut, fumbled for the latch as she slammed into the shutters, squealing in rage.

There were words lost amidst her breathy snarls of fury. "– _You're dead you little fucker you're dead I'm going to bathe in your blood I'm going to shower in it and you'll beg me to_ –"

I closed the window and latched it. "Guess we're not getting out that way either."

The Fox groaned. I swung towards her, pushing my hands through my hair, wondering what the fuck we were going to do. She had her hand pressed against her abdomen, blood spilling out past her fingers.

"Is it bad?" I asked, not knowing what the hell else to do.

She lifted her head, stared at me with wordless fury through the eyeholes of the cowl.

"I mean will it kill you? Are you immortal? They say the Gray Fox stole the cowl three hundred years ago. Was that... was that you?"

"Now? You want to do this now? Fancy a bedtime story, Jack? How about I get my tit out and nurse you to sleep as well?"

"Fuck. I was only asking–" I flinched. The vampire at the window had torn her way through the shutters, shredding the wood into splinters. Her skin was red-raw now, charred and blackened, splitting open to reveal a wet red gleam beneath.

I seized the curtains, and dragged them shut, shutting out the image of her face.

"Smart idea, Jack," the Gray Fox said. "Nothing keeps out vampires better than curtains."

"Shut up."

"When the ones in the corridor smash through the door why don't you try sticking a bucket over their heads? That'll fox 'em."

"I said shut the fuck up." I swung towards her. "It's your fault we're in this mess in the first fucking place, remember, so keep your godsdamn cunting mouth shut for two minutes and let me think. Unless you've got any better ideas, oh guildmaster mine?"

Her eyes glittered at me, filled with resentment and seething rage.

I exhaled. "In a pinch, I'll try the bucket idea."

She snorted, and rolled her eyes upwards. For a moment there was blessed silence. Apart from the vampires of course. Still, it gave me a chance to think, only I didn't have a fucking clue where to start.

I gave the storeroom a quick pace. The unlikely chance of a secret passage proved just as unlikely as I'd suspected. There was a broken chest of drawers I might be able to rip apart for a stave that'd prove a more effective weapon against multiple opponents than the dagger, but I wasn't kidding myself. I'd be more likely to give myself splinters than to be of any actual danger to them. The Fox's bucket idea would probably be a more viable strategy in the short term. Then they'd just take the buckets off their heads and I'd be dead.

"Well?" The Fox never was one to stay silent for long. "What's your assessment of the situation?"

"My assessment of the situation is that we're completely and utterly screwed. I haven't been this comprehensively shafted since I met Sanguine." I slammed my fist against the wall. " _Shit!_ "

"Punch your way out. That'll do it."

"For fuck's sake!" I spun on her. "Would you be _quiet_?" My gaze fell on the cowl, and in the back of my mind, a voice whispered to me. I went still, my mouth dry. "What does it do?" I asked.

The Fox lifted her head, wary. "What?"

"The cowl." I took a step towards her, flexing my grip around the dagger. "What powers does it have?"

She pressed her hand tighter against her belly. "The power to fuck you over."

"You can virtually turn invisible," I said slowly. "I've seen you do it. I've never seen anything like it. Not without magic." The voice in my head kept on, cajoling. _No other way,_ I thought. And even if I couldn't escape... maybe the cowl could keep me alive. Buy me a little time until I could figure out my way home.

"No. No no no." The Fox shook her head, shoving herself away from me. "Jack, no. _No!_ " I knelt between her legs, holding her still like a lover. She scrabbled at me, smearing my fine Nibenean robes with her life's blood. "You don't want this!"

But I did. And it wasn't just the need for survival now. Something else was rising up in my chest, the fascination and terror I'd always felt at the sight of the cowl, at the prickle of the felted wool against my skin, at the way the daedric lettering gleamed in dim light.

 _Shadow hide you._ They were words etched into every thief's heart. They were part of who I _was_.

With the power of the cowl, I'd have a chance. Maybe. It'd be a slim one, but if there was a suitable distraction, I might be able to get away. I'd see my wife again.

"Listen to me, listen to me, you're not yourself. That voice in your head, it's not your own. _Listen_ to me, you stupid fucking fool! Nonono, wait–"

My hand closed on the cowl. She flinched, let out a cry as a shudder wrenched through her. I could see the whites of her eyes; she looked like an animal, wild with terror. I thought of Millona, and drew the cowl off her head.

Blood spurted from her mouth. Dark bubbles of popped at the corner of her lips. The wool bunched in my fist, and I had the feeling that I had made a horrible and irrevocable mistake. The Fox had gone, and I was kneeling between the legs of a woman. A woman I sort of had the feeling I knew, who glared at me with contempt and pity in her eyes. A woman I was pretty sure was dying. "You stupid fucking fool," she hissed, and coughed up more blood.

The door smashed inwards.

And I put on the cowl.

* * *

 **A/N: And that marks the end of Part Two. If you're enjoying this story, then I would love it if you took the time to leave a review. All comments are hugely appreciated, and I welcome constructive criticism. Thanks for reading.**


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Please note this chapter contains themes and references to rape and self-harm.**

 **Thanks to Tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading.**

* * *

 **Part Three**

 **Of Foxes and Moths**

" _All the comrades that e'er I had,  
They're sorry for my going away,  
All the sweethearts e'er I had,  
They'd wish me one day more to stay,  
But since it came unto my lot,  
That I should rise and you should not,  
I gently rise and with a smile,  
Good night and joy be with you all."_

The Parting Glass

 **Chapter Twenty-Nine**

 _"I am the Stranger. That is all you need to know. That, and I am no one to be trifled with."_

– The Stranger

Take a man and hold him in the palm of your hand. Fold him in half. Lengthwise, widthwise, lengthwise again. Snap his spine in two, crush his bones if you have to to. His spirit goes without saying. Ignore how he screams and howls and begs for mercy. And don't worry: you won't kill him. He's very hard to kill.

Keep folding. Lengthwise. Widthwise. Lengthwise again. With each fold you strip away a little more of his life. Another memory gone, snatched from the minds and the hearts of his friends, his lovers, his enemies. With each fold he becomes a little less real, a little less tethered to the world.

Keep folding. Lengthwise. Widthwise. Lengthwise again. Until the scrap you hold cupped in your hand can hardly be called a man.

His bones will knit back together, his wounds will heal. He never will be quite the same again, this man who screams and howls and begs for mercy, but he'll mend. More or less.

He'll live, although he might wish otherwise. He's the sort who'll cling on to life with his teeth and fingernails. Who'll bite and kick and claw out of instinct to survive, even when he's not altogether sure he wants to. He's too much of a coward to take his own life.

And in the unlikely event that he grows some balls and decides otherwise, Nocturnal won't let him. He's not the type who can go up against a Daedric Lord. She'll keep him going. She'll heal his wounds with her not-so-tender mercies. Stitch back the gashes in his wrists. Force her long slender fingers down his throat and claw out the poison in his stomach. Pinch his stopped heart back to beating, and watch from the shadows while he rouses his broken body, reaches for the bottle of brandy and weeps.

At least until the moment she decides that she's done with him. That it's time for a new champion.

Keep folding.

He is Nocturnal's chosen one. For now at least.

He'll do.

~o~O~o~

I spent the whole of 3E 423 and much of 424 drunk out of my skull and wallowing in misery and despair.

I wish to all the gods I was exaggerating, but I'm afraid I'm not. That year was a deep well of bitterness and shame, spent raiding the castle's cellar, baffling the steward who could not determine the source of the pilfering, and watching my wife from a distance. I wandered the halls of the castle like a ghost, unseen and unchallenged. It seemed a strange echo of my time in Bravil.

The time I didn't spend in the castle, I spent in an abandoned house in Anvil that belonged to the guild. There were many such houses dotted throughout Cyrodiil, safe houses in which a guilded thief could seek haven or shelter or simply a place to lay his head. This one I claimed for myself. It wasn't much, sparsely furnished with only a straw-stuffed bed and no company except for the loneliness that seemed almost a living thing.

So much time I wasted.

I trudged from day to day with my head down, half-blind with drink and misery, and each night I'd swear that the next day I would try harder to find a way out of the trap I had found myself snared in. Tomorrow I'd rescue myself.

Except I never did.

The days merged into one, until a month had passed and I had done nothing but drink and weep, and shamble after my wife, begging her to see me. To recognise me. Even just to look at me, because how could she see my face, and not remember me a little, if I was the man she claimed to love, the man she had chosen when she could have had her pick of all the eligible noblemen in Cyrodiil?

Unless perhaps she didn't love me quite so much as she had claimed.

The hours became days and the days became weeks and the weeks became months, and before I knew it, a year had passed and I had achieved nothing. Nothing except for how I'd drunk myself fat and idle, my body bloating and the ache in my fingers worsening every day. And every time I laid my head upon the pillow each night, I felt the last Fox's hand clamping around my wrist, heard his voice choked with fear and desperation as he begged me not to do it. Only now could I recognise how it had been more warning than plea.

Should I have listened?

But if I had listened I would be dead.

And still, _still_...

Sleep refused to come and I stirred, rising from the cold empty bed. Paced the confines of my prison like a sabre cat in a menagerie. Down the staircase to the door and back to the first floor again, until I finally conceded defeat and reached for the wine.

I should have listened. Because surely death would have been better than this half-life. I was neither one thing nor the other, a ghost caught between worlds.

There were days when the mist cleared and the despair lifted. There were brief moments where Millona seemed to notice me, where she might say a word or two to me. A greeting or a question or a request for the salt cellar. Or else a stranger might stop to ask me a question or two about my life. They never remembered anything I said, but it was something at least, a momentary connection with another soul in a world where I was otherwise shrouded from view. Those moments gave me something to cling onto in the midst of my despair.

I was a man stumbling through a labyrinth shrouded in darkness, and somewhere, if I could only find it, a fine silvery thread was waiting to guide me home.

I dreamed of it sometimes, that labyrinth. There were figures waiting in the darkness, so motionless that at first I thought them statues, until I saw the blink of eyes as desperate as my own. If I got too close they dissolved, lost to the shadows. My predecessors. They watched me with something very like hope in their eyes as if I could do a damn thing to save them. There were so many of them, the ones who'd worn the cowl before me,

The cowl. How I came to loathe that fucking thing.

I'd caught a glimpse of all the power it had to offer, the enchantments woven into every stitch and fibre – tailor-made for a thief, for one who had need of the shadows. And indeed there were times when I would sit on the floor with the cowl cradled in my lap, fighting the urge to put it on. It fascinated me and it terrified me both, and the clumsy childish stitching made it that much more frightening. When I held it, I could feel the words carved upon my heart: _Shadow hide you_. Could sense the faceless bastard I dreamed about watching me, waiting to claim me.

And thank the gods that I was a coward, because had I been a braver man I might have sought to destroy it.

I only ever tried once. In a fit of drunken fury I threw it into the fire. I stirred the coals and sat back to drink my wine and watch it burn, until a sudden, sickening terror struck me. As if a man like me could destroy a daedric artifact. It might be lost to me, but that didn't mean the curse would be broken, only that the cowl had been snatched from my grasp and I would never be free.

The dread that flooded me at that thought was almost enough to sober me up.

I snatched for the poker and dragged the cowl from the flames, babbling, "Oh thank the gods, thank the gods," with tears wet on my cheeks when I pulled it free. It was undamaged, without even the slightest scorch mark, and I held it close, sinking back on my haunches. The wool was warm to the touch, but the edge of my thumb brushed the lettering and found it cold as a sliver of ice.

I felt the sense of something watching me.

"I'm still not putting it on," I said aloud, and the world seemed to shiver around me. It felt like laughter.

I would die before I gave Nocturnal the satisfaction of my donning the cowl. Whatever gifts it bestowed weren't worth the price of everything that bitch had stolen from me. I had sworn a vow to Millona that I would never again be a thief. I was not that man anymore.

I would not be a thief.

So instead I became a different man, one I liked even less. One who drank the days away, and haunted his own lost life like a spirit, who stalked his wife like a shadow. And at night I'd retreat to my crumbling house to wank myself to joyless orgasms that brought more pain than pleasure, before finally tumbling into drunken fitful sleep.

I became a spectator in my own life. I should have stayed away. It hurt too much to see the trail of pain I'd left in my wake, or perhaps more accurately the lack of it. Millona barely seemed to notice I was gone. She went about her business, took over what few responsibilities I'd had without so much as breaking her stride. If she mourned my loss at all she kept it hidden where none could see it.

It was hard to know how much was stoicism and how much was genuine indifference. And when I was drunk enough and bitter enough that needling inner voice would whisper that perhaps she was simply glad to be rid of me, and who could blame her?

She was the other half of my heart, and I had been fool enough to think myself hers. You would have thought perhaps, that someone so cynical should have known better. I'd spent half my life watching her, after all.

It was Anvil that was the centre of Millona's world: then and now.

It wasn't until I was cursed that I realised it was possible to be jealous of an entire city's place in my wife's affections. I sound bitter, but I was glad at the time. It made it easier in a way, I think, that she didn't seem to be mourning my absence.

But then again I have been known to lie.

~o~O~o~

The babe was newly born, so fresh to the world it was still crimped from the womb. A spindly little thing, with dark fluff for hair and bleary unfocused eyes. It nestled in the maid servant's arms, its face creased and wrinkled like an old man's, as heedless of the women of the castle flocking around it as a lantern is of moths.

None of the women saw the watching shadow. I was a common sight in the castle in those days, as much a part of the court as a piece of furniture and spoken to about as often. I leaned on the edge of the balcony, restless and drunk, but not nearly as drunk as I wanted to be, watching my wife smile graciously as she cradled another woman's baby.

That smile stiffened when the baby turned his head inwards, rooting against the silk of her dress for a nipple. None of them saw the flash of an emotion too raw to be named in Millona's eyes. And still she laughed softly, and brushed the tips of her fingers across the baby's head.

"I think he may be hungry."

"He's always hungry," the maid said. "May I, milady?" She was already loosening her clothing, ready to take him back, and Millona handed him over. The baby nestled into his mother's arms, his dark toothless beak of a mouth craning wide like a baby bird. The nipple and a good portion of aureole vanished into his ravening maw.

"Don't it hurt?" one of the younger maids asked, with disgusted fascination on her face. She looked like she was watching someone squeezing their spots.

"It did a bit at first. Felt like he was gnawing on them. But it got better." The mother's hand brushed back the baby's hair. His hand curled around her outstretched finger.

"With my fourth little one it was agony." This came from the cook, who'd given birth to almost half a legion of children already, so many she'd lost count. "I swear she must've been half vampire by the amount of blood in my milk. I had to wean her early or I think she might actually have bitten my teats right off, beg pardon milady. Worse than childbirth."

"No one could persuade me owt's worse than childbirth," the mother said. "Even this little one, tiny as he is, split me near from stem to stern, and that healer the midwife sent for was about as much use as a colander in a thunderstorm. Worth it, mind, but..." She wriggled on her chair. "My bits are like a patchwork quilt."

The expressions of half the company – the ones that hadn't gone through labour – glazed over. The others nodded knowingly.

"He's a beautiful boy," Millona told the mother. "He looks just like you."

"Thank you, milady."

Millona rose and bid them good day. Only the cook who'd lost her share of babies herself watched her mistress leave with a look of pity before she turned back to coo over the suckling baby. I waited until Millona passed me without even a glance – not that I'd expected one, but even after a year I couldn't prevent my heart leaping in hope – and slunk after her. She moved with certainty down the staircase as if she knew exactly where she was going, and to what purpose, but when she reached the dining hall she came to a halt, as if she'd forgotten what it was she wanted.

As I came through the door behind her, she turned and looked at me. I wasn't fool enough to think she saw me, but still I murmured her name and watched her face for any sign of recognition. There was none, and still she followed me with her gaze as I moved to the fireplace where our wedding portrait had hung. After a moment she looked down, noticed the wet patch at her breast where the baby had gone questing for a nipple. She reached up to dab it with her fingers, and froze, her hand trembling. For a moment, her eyes slid closed.

What had I ever given her except heartache and pain? I may have done my best as a count, although there are many who would disagree, but the one thing she wanted, something that should have been well within my power to grant, had been denied her. Nothing but a silent nursery, an empty cradle. A cradle that would never now be filled, not unless she came to her senses and gave up on me. Enough time had passed by now that nary an eye in Cyrodiil would blink if she took a consort, and still she waited.

How long would she wait, I wondered. Until she decided I was never coming back? Or until she decided I wasn't worth waiting for? And which would come first?

She lifted her head and stared at our wedding portrait. The painter, another fine liar, had captured my likeness with rare skill: he hadn't attempted to make me look noble, but had given me a handsome rakish air, which was probably far more accurate. In the painting, my gaze rested on my wife, and hers was turned away from me, out towards Anvil's bay, the message clear. The pose had been on Lucar Umbranox's instructions, and at the time I'd laughed about it.

It didn't seem quite so funny now.

I couldn't look any more. I retreated, made my winding unsteady way to the wine cellar to steal away what was rightfully mine.

~o~O~o~

 _You're drunk. Go home._

I thought of the shack that was waiting for me. The fire that barely warmed me, the tumbledown walls and looming shadows, the cold uncomfortable bed. Nothing to do there but drink and masturbate and pick over the bones of my lonely day.

Go home. As if I ever could. And in any case, if I stayed at home every time I was drunk, I'd never leave the shack.

As I wandered the private corridors, I passed a guard who barely registered me, and felt a twist of anger in my chest at his incompetence. It wasn't the guard's fault really, but still... I could be anyone. Assassin. Rapist.

 _Thief._

I could be _anyone_ and still he let me wander the private quarters of the castle, the damned bloody fool. Let me wander until I wound up at the door to the one place I hadn't wanted to come. It was the centre of the labyrinth in which I was ensnared, and no matter what turns I took, it seemed inevitable that I would end up here, with one hand resting on the door to Millona's private chamber and the other wrapped around the neck of a bottle of wine.

I beg you, dear reader, to understand how much it sickened me to spy on her. I longed to stop; each day I promised myself would be the last, but always, always, I was drawn back with excuses, justifications. It hurt, how much I missed her. It ached.

While she worked on correspondence in the parlour, I might sit in the window seat and read. For a few scant hours I could lie to myself, pretend that nothing had changed, that we were still man and wife, reading together in a loving, companionable silence.

The library. The parlour. The dining room.

But never her chamber. _Never_.

I drew a breath. Exhaled. Drew another. And then I opened the door, and went in.

I've always moved quietly. I cannot help it. It seems to be part of my nature, some instinctive terror of drawing attention to myself that I cannot shake, even when I want to be seen. The 'don't see me' plea of a frightened boy, clashing with the heartache of never being noticed. It was all I ever wanted: to be noticed and loved and cherished. To matter.

Had Nocturnal settled down to devise a crueller punishment specifically for me, she couldn't have done better than this. She'd given me the skills to become the finest thief imaginable (even if my fingers didn't work quite as well as they had used to and these days I wasn't exactly built for gambolling around on rooftops like a sure-footed mountain goat), but in doing so she'd stolen away the only life I'd ever truly wanted. Good friends and a place where I belonged, a woman that I loved and who loved me back.

And again came that lingering doubt, as I shut the door carefully, quietly, behind me, closing myself off from the warm torchlight that flooded the corridors. I lifted the bottle of wine to my lips, and took a swallow. It tasted sour now, not nearly so sweet as before. The bedroom had the still, stifled air of a room where someone slept, and the shadows were watchful and waiting.

Millona slumbered, the bedclothes mounded over her body. She wasn't naked, a relief that barely scratched the surface of my shame. Her nightdress was one of dove-grey silk. It might even had been the one she was wearing on our wedding night when I came to her and which I barely saw again, since even on the coldest nights when we'd shared a bed (which was almost always) she slept naked. We both had.

I took another gulp of wine, wondering why this should feel so much like a betrayal, when all it was was a man watching his wife sleep?

Another swallow of wine, this one so hurried the wine spilled over my lips and down my neck. It made me think of the shrine of Sanguine. Of a woman who wasn't a woman at all. Of a life I could have led where I took what I wanted and damned the consequences. And maybe it wasn't too late to take that path.

A sick feeling, a twist of rot at the heart of me.

I was her husband, after all. She wouldn't begrudge me this. It's what she would want.

Was I lying to myself? I couldn't tell any more. The lines I'd drawn in those first early days when I'd still been stupid enough to hope that this exile couldn't last grew more and more blurred every day. There were nights when I dreamed of coming here. Nights when the orgasm was just that little bit more painful, that little bit more bitter. When I gripped my cock so tightly it hurt, and dreamed of going to her room, of crawling into her bed.

I wouldn't have–

It's not that I–

Gods, I can't write the words. But whatever had happened, whatever trap I had been ensnared in, I was still her husband, and she was still my wife.

I would never have hurt her.

But perhaps if I went to her in the shrouding mantle of darkness, if I kissed her, touched and caressed her as I had so many times before, then such a thing might wake her memory in a way that mere words could not. I'd imagined it, the fantasy so vivid I could feel her body against mine, and hear the sounds she'd make, at first startled ('startled'! Gods, the lie of it sickens me), and then filled with desire, because she remembers this man in her bed, this man who kisses her lips, her neck, her breasts. Who whispers his name in her ear, over and over again until it catches. Who tells her that he's not going to hurt her even as he holds her down. Whose arousal she can feel against her leg, and she isn't afraid as she should be had he been a stranger, but instead she wants it, wants _him._

Or so he tells himself, anyway, as he claims what's his by right of marriage.

Even a lie might have been enough. I knew it was madness, but still... it seemed true somehow, like the echo of a fairy tale. Perhaps something so innate to human nature – the desire of a man for a woman, a woman for a man – could be powerful enough to break a daedric curse.

After all, was there any way more guaranteed to make her notice me?

Gods, it terrifies me. I am not a man given to praying or to thanking the Divines for anything, but this one thing I thank them for: that never happened.

It was never anything more than a sickening, arousing dream I conjured in my squalid cottage, and even then, even in the midst of that dream, I saw it for the lie it was.

So I tell myself anyway.

"Godsdamn." I sank down on the bed, and buried my head in my hands. Fourteen months I'd been the Gray Fox, and a fucking useless one I'd been so far. I knew myself for a drunken fool, and I was tired, the exhaustion bone-deep. "Godsdamn, Millona, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I wept at the side of her bed, lost for a long while in wrenching sobs, until Millona stirred, murmuring something in her sleep. I composed myself, swiping my hands across my cheeks.

There were no such things as fairy tales. I couldn't make myself invisible or turn myself into mist; I was just a thief who could use the shadows a little better than average. Creeping into my wife's bed – forcing her to acknowledge me – wouldn't break the spell either. It would only make me a monster.

It wasn't much of a vow, the one I made, sitting by her bedside, drunk out of my skull and with my cheeks stiff with drying tears. But still I made it.

I wouldn't come back here, not to her chamber. Not until she brought me herself. This was where I would draw my line.

It wasn't much. I know it wasn't much.

You need to understand this, dear reader: I do not claim to be a good man. If I have allowed you to think that, even for a moment, then I beg you to disabuse yourself of that notion. I am not a good man.

I'd spy on her. Willingly. Hungrily. I'd swallow down every moment as if I could ever quench my thirst. I couldn't deny myself that. I craved her, the sight of her, the smell of her. Those moments where all was quiet and peaceful and I could pretend just for a little while that nothing had changed, that I was still her husband and she was still my wife.

There were days when that was all that kept me going.

But not here. I would not come to her chamber again. Not unless I had a damn good reason.

"Millona..." My voice was low and grating. I had to force the words out. "I'm so sorry." The neck of the wine bottle seemed a dark eye fixed upon me, bitter and mocking. I drew a breath. "I release you from our wedding vows. It's not because I don't love you... I do. It's all I ever wanted, to be your husband, and I know how badly I've fucked things up, but–" _Her hand splayed across the baby's fluff of hair. The laughing smile that didn't touch her eyes. Her fingers stained black with blood._ "If you want to marry again, try for children... Well, I know Marus has a couple of bastards already. Who knows, maybe you'll have better luck with him then you ever did with me."

She'd left a book face-down on the nightstand, the pages splayed. I picked it up, closed it with quiet reverence and set it down again. In the bed Millona moved, a catch in her breathing that told me she wasn't quite asleep. I went still, and glanced at her, mouth dry.

"Damn you," she whispered.

~o~O~o~

There were good days and bad days. Days when I was so drunk I could barely see straight. And still I held true to the vow, even when I roamed the private quarters of the castle, even on the nights when I found myself outside her door again, heart pounding behind my ribs.

It wasn't much. I have broken enough vows in my life to know how easily broken they are. One day I might be weary enough, angry enough, _drunk_ enough, and the line I'd drawn in the doorway to her room would mean as much as a line drawn in the sand waiting for the waves to wash it away. Another year or two, perhaps, and the promise of that fairytale ending could be enough to tempt me across.

More months passed and our wedding portrait was removed from the wall of the dining room, consigned to a storeroom along with the other throne, the companion to her own. It was to be replaced with a painting of Anvil Bay, of the lighthouse standing stalwart over the harbour. I watched them take it down, with my boots resting atop the edge of the table, and the brandy swirling in my glass.

"He must have been a very wicked man indeed, the count," I said as Qileel passed by me. The words had barbs; they stung. "To have deserted his wife so cruelly."

Qileel stopped. Her shoulders hunched and for a moment I thought she would ignore me as she had so many times before. Except this time she didn't. This time she turned towards me, her movements slow and deliberate, her spines flaring with anger. "If you think the count deserted his wife, sir, then you are a _fool_."

I blinked at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"Do not presume," she hissed, "to repeat such a slander in this castle again or I'll have you ejected."

A numbed sensation settled upon me. All my self-hating cynicism frozen as solid as the ice that marched the Sea of Ghosts to the far north. I gawped at her.

Still furious, she lowered her voice, glancing towards the door, making sure that Millona wasn't nearby. "There isn't a man alive who could persuade me he left her on purpose. I have never met anyone so utterly devoted to his wife, so don't you _dare_ suggest otherwise."

"I won't, madam. You have my word, and I sincerely beg your pardon. Since you're so convinced, perhaps I was mistaken about the count..." I closed my eyes, my voice catching in my throat. When I spoke again, I sounded strained. "Is it your belief something happened to him?"

She hesitated, but my sincere apology had mollified her. "I fear it must have," she said, her voice low. "He was always wild, that's no secret, and my lady never quite tamed him as well as she believed. But he must be dead, or else why would he not return?"

"Perhaps he is cursed," I said. "And it may be that he has returned, yet no one recognises him." _Perhaps the stupid fucker is standing right in front of you._ This last I did not say, although I was sorely tempted. I knew if I said it her eyes would glaze over and this conversation would be over.

She nodded, thinking this through. "Perhaps. I pray that's true."

"You hope he's cursed?"

"Better to be cursed than to be dead," she said, "and curses can be broken. One thing I know, sir, and you would know this too if you were acquainted with the count, if he is still alive, if he is cursed, he will never stop fighting to return to his wife's side."

"Perhaps..." My voice broke in my throat. "Perhaps he's too weak."

And in a flash her anger was back. She leaned close to me, smelling of salt and the breeze that whipped in off the sea. "And if you believe that then you don't know the count at all. That man would never stop fighting. Not until he breathed his last breath and even then I'm unconvinced."

 _You weakling_ , her eyes said. _You pathetic gutless worm. Lounging around, mourning your lost life and drinking your spirit away while your wife suffers. You bastard. You_ bastard.

Her eyes were a mirror held up to my own. The man she believed in didn't exist. The Count Corvus Umbranox she knew was only the truth framed in a particular way. Of everyone I know, only a handful had ever glimpsed the truth of what I truly was.

Weakling. Drunkard. Coward. But fuck it, I did love my wife. And since when had I ever stopped fighting?

I rose suddenly, reaching out to grip her sleeve, "You say curses can be broken."

Her nictating membranes flickered across her eyes in surprise. "I beg your pardon?"

"Curses. Can they really always be broken? Even when they come courtesy of the gods." I licked my lips. "Or the daedra?"

"I'm hardly an expert in such matters, sir." She regarded me with disgust, nostrils tightening in disgust. Perhaps the mists that shrouded me from view had cleared for a moment and she saw me for what I truly was: a drunkard with the stink of stale alcohol seeping through his pores, unshaven and bloated, and dressed in grimy clothes.

I released her, stepping away. "Forgive me, madam."

She adjusted her clothing, glancing at me uncertainly. The flash of clarity was already growing fuzzy. She'd been thinking about calling for the guards, and now I suspected she was starting to wonder why she had thought it might be necessary, only that there was something about me, something odd...

Too much to hope she might have seen something familiar.

But drunk as I was, her words stuck with me. _There's always a way._

~o~O~o~

I went to Skingrad, and to one of the few people I trusted without question.

Too long had passed since I had last seen Calvus, and I was struck by how old he looked, how weary. I approached him, not as the Fox, but as a stranger, letting myself into the book shop, and closing the door carefully behind me. He looked up, and although his gaze shifted over my face with no recognition, he was too canny not to realise that my business there might not be entirely on the level.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I hope so." I came deeper into the shop, willing him to look a little closer at my face, willing him to remember me. He didn't. "I need a little advice."

"Of course." His jaw tightened and he cast a glance over my shoulder at the closed door. "Are you looking for a particular book? Something rare perhaps, not in the usual line?"

"Not exactly. I need to know how to go about breaking a daedric curse."

"Oh." His eyes widened. "Oh. I... I see."

"Not what you were expecting?" I grinned, and something flickered in his eyes. Now he darted a sharp-eyed glance that made my heart skip. "What were you expecting, I wonder? Whether I would ask if you could obtain an uncensored copy of _The Real Barenziah_?"

"Something along those lines." He gave me a sharp smile. "I could, by the by."

"Oh, I'm certain, but that's not what I'm in the market for." I gestured at the chair. "May I?" He nodded, indicating I was very welcome to sit and I sank down. "As it happens, I already own a copy, and I'm in no need of another. It's the illustrated edition. And speaking of priceless volumes..." I had a bag of coin for him, which contained a not inconsiderable number of Septims, but I knew Calvus's attention and imagination would not be captured by mere coin, but by ink on paper. I laid the parcel on the table, and he raised a cautious gaze to mine.

"What's this?"

"Open it. "

He unwrapped the parcel with reverent care, his fingers no longer quite so quick, the joints stiff and swollen as he peeled back the wrappings with all the reverence of a husband undressing his wife on their wedding night. The book was an early and pristine copy of _Before the Ages of Man_ , and he drew in a sharp breath as he read the embossed title.

"Gods. This is..." He pressed his hand over his mouth. "This is priceless, sir. Do you seek to trade?"

I shook my head. "It's yours."

"But–"

"Consider it a retainer. There's some coin as well, quite a bit of it, in fact, but I thought you'd appreciate this more." I'm not sure he even heard me. He was already captivated by the book, leafing through it with trembling fingers. I had to say his name twice before he lifted his gaze to mine.

"I beg your pardon, sir. Your business... Um... A... a daedric curse, was it?" His hand lingered on the book as if he couldn't bear to stop touching it. "May I ask the nature of this curse?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out myself. As far as I can tell, it erases whomever it affects from history. He becomes a walking shadow, a stranger even to the ones who loved him best. His very name is forgotten, stripped from the records and from memory." And as I spoke, I drew out the cowl and threw it onto the table. He jerked back, eyes widening.

"That's–"

I nodded. "The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal. Fashioned, if the rumours are true, from the cloak of that daedric bitch herself." I paused, studying the ugly thing, crumpled on the table. "Judging by the quality of the stitching it was by someone who was fuck-useless at sewing."

"I've heard the stories. I have a book–"

" _Purloined Shadows_?"

"That's right."

I nodded grimly. "I've read it. And any other number of books that have all been terribly fascinating, but which offer nothing of any use when it comes to breaking the curse." His fearful gaze was still fixed on the cowl. I slipped it back into my pocket. "You shouldn't be in any danger. Still... better safe than sorry."

He exhaled. "Thank you."

"Any ideas?"

"Well..." He considered, finger tapping at the table. "Oftentimes the key to breaking a curse is to fulfil whatever scenario it prevents. So if the curse were to remove a man's name from history, it may be that speaking that name would be sufficient to break the curse."

"I have spoken my name. Several times. There have been days when I've done nothing but." Days when I'd screamed my name until I was hoarse.

He gave me an apologetic glance. "Forgive me, sir, but did anyone hear you?"

"No." I sighed. "No, godsdamnit, no."

"So it's not sufficient that the name be merely spoken. It must also be heard. And, if you'll forgive me again, it may not be your name that would need to be spoken. I take it you are not the master thief spoken of in _Purloined Shadows_? An elf might have lived that long, but you're clearly human, and you don't appear to be a vampire..."

"I've had some near misses, but no. Still human, just barely. You think it's him? Whoever that smug, irritating, deceitful bastard is, you think it's his name that would have to be spoken?"

"If he truly is the originator of the curse it seems likely."

"Shit." I sank back in my chair, frowning. "I don't know his name."

"Well, no. If the curse was easy to break, no doubt it would have been done by now."

"So how the fuck do I go about finding out a name that's been excised from history? It's impossible."

"It certainly seems that way."

"Shit." _Shitting shitting shit._ I buried my face in my hands, thinking that this was it for the rest of my shadow life, watching my wife and friends from the outskirts of reality like a phantom.

"Of course," Calvus said, slowly, "there might be a way."

I dropped my hands and stared at him. "What?"

"I can think of at least one place where the name might still be written. A text that no daedric magic could affect." His gaze flicked to me. "The Elder Scrolls."

"You think his name would still be written in a scroll?"

"Oh, I'm certain of it."

"Gods, but that's..." Impossible. As impossible as naming a man whose identity had been erased from history. I thought of Qileel, of her insistence that I'd never give up fighting to return to my wife's side. "All right, let's say, by some fucking miracle, I could get hold of the scroll, how would I go about reading it? _Could_ I read it?"

He rose to his feet abruptly, and ran his finger along the spines of the books on the shelves, searching for a particular volume. "Perhaps," he said. "There are ways of preparing one's mind, meditations and so forth..."

"Like the Moth Priests in the White Gold Tower."

"Indeed." He began to stacked books on the desk, He looked younger suddenly, his eyes bright and animated, and I felt a sharp stab of guilt for having neglected him for so long. "They have a monastery in the Jerrals as well."

"And they'd help?"

"Oh, good gods no! The Moth Priests consider the study and protection of the scrolls a sacred duty. No no no. No doubt you'd have to become one of their number."

I gave a bark of laughter. "I'm not becoming a monk!"

"You might have to," he said quietly, and I subsided, frowning, and thought for a moment.

"How many scrolls are there?"

"Oh, countless. Their number is unreckonable." His eyes were bright and shining, and for a moment, we slotted back into our habitual roles, he the master and I the apprentice. His joy was genuine and contagious and I mock-reluctantly submitted myself to a lecture I found secretly fascinating. "Don't make the mistake of thinking of them as tangible objects or as texts in the normal sense of the word. They are fragments of creation itself, from before time even began. No doubt their number is infinite."

"Infinite. Right. But we only need one."

He beamed at me. "Indeed."

"Capital. So which one?"

"Ah." His face dropped. "I'm afraid I have no idea."

I swallowed back an exclamation of frustration. Yet another obstacle slamming into place.

"There may be ways of finding out," he added. "Most likely the scroll is in the archives at the Imperial Library. It's only a matter of finding out which one. There is a book that details various Elder Scrolls and the information contained within, _The Lost Histories of Tamriel._ If I'm able to track down a copy..."

"You don't have one here?"

"Good gods, no. This book is vanishingly rare. It may even have been destroyed."

"Of course," I said bitterly. "Because gods forbid any part of this not be virtually impossible." He gave me a hurt little look and I shook my head. "Never mind. Do what you can. And thank you, Calvus."

As I stood, he frowned at me, as if trying to puzzle something out. I felt a shivery thrill because I knew the look in his eyes: I had seen it before in the eyes of others. From time to time something I did or said would catch in someone's mind, like a spark set to kindling.

"I'm sorry," he said, hesitantly. "Only for a moment, I thought... I almost felt as though we'd met before."

I moved around the table towards him and gripped his upper arms, urgent enough to make him draw back a little. I held him fast. "That's because we have met before. Calvus, it's me. It's Jack. From Bravil? I'm the fuck-witted idiot who got all your books burned. I'm the useless apprentice who spent more of his time chasing women than listening to you, and gods, I never thought I'd say this but I really regret that now."

He stared at me, and my hope began to grow, my heart picking up its pace.

"Calvus, please... You know who I am. I know you do. _Look at me._ "

He blinked, and the spark had been pinched out. "I beg your pardon, sir. I must be mistaken."

" _Godsdamn_." I sagged, then wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He made a startled noise in the back of his throat. "Sorry," I mumbled into his robes, and drew in a ragged breath. He felt much frailer; he'd lost a lot of weight since the last time I'd seen him, and another stab of guilt pricked at me.

He patted my back gently, murmuring something soothing under his breath until I shook myself, wiping my eyes and feeling like a fool. I cleared my throat, turning my back on him. "Let's say you do find that book and the scroll we want is in the Imperial Library... How the fuck would we go about getting hold of it?"

"Well, I've no idea," he said, and as I cast a weary glance at him he chuckled. "Perhaps we could simply steal it."

"Steal it? You're suggesting I steal an _Elder fucking Scroll_ from the Imperial Library?" I stared at him. "That's insane."

"I know. Only a madman would try something so reckless." Something flickered across his face, a flash of something – of recognition perhaps? – there for a moment then gone. "Or perhaps," he said slowly, "a fuck-witted idiot."

"Well now." I grinned. "Since you put it like _that_ …"


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: Thank you to Tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty**

' _The Order of the Ancestor Moth is as ancient as it is noble. We nurture and celebrate our beloved ancestors, whose spirits are manifest in the Ancestor Moths. Each moth carries the fjyron of an ancestor's spirit. Loosely translated as the "will to peace," the fjyron can be sung into the silk produced by the Ancestor Moths. When the silk is in turn spun into cloth and embroidered with the genealogy of the correct Ancestor, clothing of wondrous power can be made_.'

– _Pension of the Ancestor Moth_

Sakeepa's bath-house hadn't changed. A little shabbier, perhaps, but that might only have been because I'd grown so used to luxury. Fat and indulgent and lazy as Armande might have called me, and for the first time in my life, I could do nothing but agree with him. The ride east from Skingrad had left me aching, and the walk from the stables had made me wearier.

I'd been fool enough to think being in a familiar place might lighten my mood, but the iridescent curtains that framed the entrance were grimy, and lent the place a seedy disreputable air, which was entirely deserved. It made my heart sink, especially when the enforcer returned my smile of greeting with a keep-moving-shithead glare. I paid, and followed a harassed-looking young Argonian woman through the winding corridors.

I wasn't ready to don the cowl. Not yet. Instead I let them oil me and sweat me and scrape me, until I smelled of nothing but perfume and my own clean skin. Until every trace of Anvil had been scraped away. I felt like a serpent shedding its skin, sloughing off every last scrap of the foolish boy I used to be.

Outside the tepidarium where Sam held court, I pulled the cowl from my bundle of belongings. I hadn't worn it, not since that first day when I'd fled the fort, with the Fox screaming behind me. I'd screamed too, the moment I burst from shadow and into sunlight. The world itself had felt like it was on fire, a blaze of raging light that made me cower away, cringing in terror and pain. By the time I'd recovered the screams had stopped. It seemed worse that way. Too much to hope the bastard had survived, but I clung to that notion, believed it with all my heart as if that alone could make it true.

The Fox was very hard to kill, but then again, he wasn't the Fox any more.

When I returned with a small contingent of legionnaires, we found the fort empty and the vampires gone. They'd left nothing behind but bodies. If the man who had once been the Fox had been among them I hadn't recognised him.

I hadn't put the cowl on since them. Not once. I'd sworn I never would again, but it seemed a minor vow to break. I put it on.

It's a strange sensation, stepping from the world of light and into one of shadow. The world sharpens around you. The enchantments woven through the fabric of the cowl, entwined with every stitch, every fibre, are powerful ones. With the cowl on, you feel the threads of life rippling through the world. You can walk into a building and pinpoint where every living and not-so-living soul is located. You can catch a lingering taste of their emotions – whether they are angry or happy or grieving or joyous. Their sorrow or rage weighs on your soul. You can know whether they are hunting you, or whether they have no idea that you're there.

Loathsome as it is, there's no doubt it's a handy thing for a thief. It felt like a comfortable well-worn cloak settling around my shoulders, and the sense of _this is meant to be_ made me deeply uneasy. It felt like another betrayal: I'd sworn to Millona I would never be a thief again, but with the cowl on I began to wonder if it was not that vow which had been the betrayal. How could I have been such a fool as to give my word I would never be a thief again, when being a thief was engraved on my bones?

The trickling of the water in the shallow pool covered the sound of my movements.

Sam and Claudine sat inside with their heads bent together, while Armande made notes in his crabbed hand. I listened for a moment or two, taking in the subject of their discussion: a gang of bitter young Khajiits in Leyawiin, angry about the border dispute over the Trans-Niben and the situation in Morrowind, were proving more sympathetic to the cause of the Renrijra Krin than to the guild.

It was Claudine who noticed me first. She glanced up and spotted me with a sharp intake of breath. "The Gray Fox!"

At her words, the two men lifted their heads.

The sight of Armande felt like a physical blow. I gave him an instinctive smile, but his gaze was hard and hostile, as challenging as it had been the first time I'd seen him, a Redguard boy stealing a fish and scrambling up the bank of the Larsius.

Sam gestured with a twitch of his fingers to the door, indicating that they should make themselves scarce. They hesitated, then rose to leave. Claudine stopped in front of me and gave a curtsey. "An honour, sir," she said and I couldn't help smiling back, despite the bitter twist of guilt in my heart. It had been too long since a woman had acknowledged me with anything but indifference, and her smile was far too wicked.

"You might not say that if you knew me better," I said, and she laughed as she left.

Sam gave a low whistle and Armande turned back towards him. "Get the word to Ra'bashad," Sam said, as if he'd suddenly made up his mind. "Tell him we'll take a twenty percent reduction in dues, as well as ten percent reduction in the fences' cut, but bounties'll cost another half again to take care of. And mention that we'll also turn a blind eye to that smuggling operation he's got going on out of Water's Edge cave near the border with Elsweyr. If the Legion happen to hear about it, it won't have been through our doing."

"Will do." Armande paused, grinning. "And while I'm in that part of the city, want me to pay court to Rochelle Aurilliard?"

"Depends on whether you value your balls or not. She'll not be happy to be approached by the likes of you. Now fuck off. The Fox and I have business."

"Sir." Armande turned to go.

"Although..." Sam grinned, and I gave him a startled glance that neither of them noticed. My doyen, the bastard I'd always thought hard-as-nails, almost looked sheepish. "If you do happen to run into her, and for whatever reason she lets you keep your testicles, then do remember me to her, won't you?"

Armande's gaze hardened again as it met mine. He was not nearly so dewy-eyed or easy to impress as Claudine, and he would have shoved his way past me had I not caught his arm. His muscles bunched as if he was about to jerk away, but he held himself still. I met his hard stare, willing him to see me, searching for even the faintest flicker of recognition. I had to fight the urge to pull him into a hug as I had with Calvus – Armande wouldn't have been nearly so understanding.

"You mind? _Sir_ ," he said. I released him and stepped aside. He didn't quite elbow past me, but he wasn't far off. And all though this, Sam had risen to his feet, and was restlessly moving about the room.

"You've got a fucking cheek coming here," he said when Armande had gone. His voice was low and unnaturally calm, but his face was set with fury. "Waltzing in like you own the fucking place. Where the fuck have you been all this time?"

"Things not going well?"

He let out a short bark of hard bitter laughter. "Oh, you know, nothing we can't handle. Just the fucking guild falling down around our ears."

I sank down on the warm stone bench. "Tell me."

He gave me a hard stare as if about to argue, then shrugged. "Seems like it's one problem after another these days. The Khajiit in County Leyawiin have been causing trouble, a Doyen and a couple of higher ranking thieves in Chorrol have been found dead–"

"Murdered?"

"You tell me. Beirennis got into an altercation on the street. Might just have been a bar-fight gone wrong. Lombard was found dead in bed. Could've been natural causes, could've been murder, or it could've been a particularly energetic whore who didn't want to get herself in the shit and slipped away. His heart never was great–"

"Was he smiling when they found him?"

He gave me a flat smile. "What I can't work out is why you think you'll be able to help. Why the fuck couldn't you just have stayed away?"

He was angry, but with the cowl on I could tell it wasn't just me he was angry at. His lifeforce, thrummed around him, hard and bright and angry, so much fury it was almost overwhelming. I could feel it bleeding at the edges of my own mind, so that my heart began to pick up its pace. The strain of holding out against it was exhausting. Once I got out of here I'd need to sleep for a week to give myself time to recover.

Only I couldn't. I had the journey north to make. I wouldn't get the chance to rest for a long while yet.

"I would have stayed away if I could," I said, and he grunted. His rage was subsiding now. "Tell me something, do you think it's just bad luck? Or is there someone working against us?"

"You mean apart from you?" He grimaced. "Maybe. Maybe not. There's no doubt I've made my share of enemies over the years. There's plenty who'd see me dead. Ra'bashard, for a start, although he's sharp enough to know when to bide his time. Lombard never was all that fond of me, now that I think on it... the Ketran boy–"

I lifted my head sharply. "Varian Ketran? He's still alive?" There was a bitter ache in my hands, an instinctive stab of terror that I quickly battened down.

"That slippery fucker? Unfortunately, as far as I know he is. Most likely snuck off to Daggerfall, although he is the sort of stupid stubborn fucker who doesn't know when to stop fighting–"

I nodded grimly. "The sort who'd slink off and make you think he's yielded only for him to turn around and try and bury his knife between your ribs when your back is turned."

"Aye." Sam's hand moved to his waist instinctively. "The sort who'd try to kill his guildmaster. Mind you, there are days when I half wish he'd succeeded. My life would have been a damn sight more peaceful."

I grunted and he moved across to the side table to pour us each a glass of brandy.

"Armande's a good man," Sam said, shifting the conversation as he handed me my glass. "Not the most skilled thief, but he's sharp and he's loyal. He'd make a fine Doyen. Tough but fair. Reminds me of myself a bit."

"Only not so much of a bastard?"

"I'm only ever a bastard when I have to be." He sighed. "I keep thinking he can take my place when I retire. Not like that's ever going to happen."

"So you can chase after your Rochelle Aurilliard?" I said, grinning.

He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. While his voice was as hard-edged as it ever was when he talked about women, his eyes had softened. "She's not my Rochelle Aurilliard, and I doubt she ever will be."

"You know, if I didn't know better I'd swear I was looking at a man in love."

His lips pulled back, a tightening of his mouth that wasn't quite a smile, and swirled the brandy in his glass. "We grew up on the streets of Daggerfall together. Street brats, the pair of us. First girl I ever kissed, back before I even knew what it meant. I was... shit, I don't know, seven or eight? And I thought her the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. Not that I ever told her."

"What happened?"

"Her mother got lucky. Met a wealthy man who fell head over heels in love with her, snatched her and her daughter away from the streets–" He laid his hand against his heart. "–And away from me. I had my heart broken for the first time when I was ten years old."

He was, I thought, only part-joking. "So ask her out for a meal. Buy her flowers, compliment her outfit, her hair..."

"I'm not taking romance advice from you."

"Then you're a fool. I'm fucking brilliant with women. Always have been. Then again that's down to my natural charm and good looks. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for buying her dinner and hoping the candlelight in the restaurant is dim enough that she doesn't get a good look at your face."

"Your natural charm and good looks won't do you much good when I smash your fucking face in." He shook his head. "It's no good anyway. I've less chance than a bunny rabbit in Hircine's hunting fields. She knows exactly what sort of man I am, and has a good idea of what I do for a living. She'd never marry a thief."

"Yeah, but I thought you were thinking about retiring."

He brought his gaze up sharply, the soft look gone. "Who told you that?"

"You did. A long time ago."

He frowned, as if trying to remember, then shook his head. "Not that it matters. Not like I can leave the guild in your hands when you fuck off for months or years on end, is it?"

"It'll be different from now on."

"You've said that before too."

"Yeah, but I mean it this time. You told me once we were going to make the guild great again–"

His brows knitted. " _You_ told _me_ that."

I waved my hand. "Doesn't matter who said what to whom. Point is, it's time to finish what we started."

"You'll come back to the Imperial City?"

I shook my head. "Business elsewhere," I said, and then when he rolled his eyes: "But I'll be contactable. You'll be able to get in touch, summon me when necessary. And I'll come, I swear it. And I won't be far. I'll most likely be based in Bruma."

"Why Bruma?"

I shrugged. "Business in the Jerralls? Trade route out of Helgen? Take your pick."

It wasn't as if he could say no. The Fox was the guild, then and now. Their fortunes were inextricably linked. And still he doubted. "Why? And why now?"

I shrugged. "Let's just say I'm a changed man."

~o~O~o~

The Temple of the Ancestor Moths nestled at the foot of the Jeralls, sheltered from the worst of the wind that howling down from the bitter north. The chill air gnawed at my aching fingers through the thick woollen gloves I wore. I held still and watched the monk making his way up the gritted steps that led to the chapel. His posture was stooped as a clerk's, and the thick bearskin cloak made it hard to tell his body shape, but he was clearly too short to be a Nord, and judging from how hurriedly he took the steps not yet blind.

The urge to escape inside out of the biting snow was a strong one. Still, I forced myself to wait, and only when no one else emerged from the monks' living quarters did I move towards the chapel, boots crunching through the fresh-fallen snow.

Inside he sat on a pew, head bent. He had discarded the bearskin cloak although it was cold enough in the chapel to make me shiver. Behind the carved stone basin of the altar, candles illuminated the stone faces of the statuary, their warm light playing over the face of the monk. He'd been skinny under the cloak, with reddish hair cut in a tonsure. My age, but his round freckled face made him look much younger.

He glanced up at the sound of my boots on the flagstones, and I readjusted my opinion of him. His shoulders had stiffened, so he'd known I was unfamiliar from the moment I entered the chapel. He'd heard it in my step perhaps, how I hadn't bustled in stamping my feet and clapping my hands together as another monk might have done. And I hadn't slammed the door against the wind. I'd come in quietly, and had been careful to close the door softly behind me, cautious of being heard. He wasn't blind, not yet, but they were training his other senses to sharpen them for the inevitable. A wise precaution.

He regarded for me a moment or two, then turned back to his prayers.

I walked down the aisle to the altar, and knelt. The surface of the water was clear as crystal, so clear I could see the traceries in the marble. I dipped in the ladle and supped, the water fresh and cold as water from a mountain spring. I drank, but didn't bother praying. The gods wouldn't help me: they'd made that very clear.

The monk's shoulders stiffened again as I took a seat on the pew beside him, and waited. He fidgeted and shifted his weight from buttock to buttock, and finally, unwillingly, turned his head to look at me.

"Is there something I can help you with, sir?" he asked. His accent was pure dock-side Anvil. In his crisp shortened vowels, I tasted the the salt-brine air, saw the seaweed tangled in strata at the shoreline.

"Perhaps there's something I can help you with," I said.

The wariness in his eyes eased a little at the sound of my Colovian accent. A moment of recognition passed between us, two kinsmen acknowledging each other in an unfamiliar place. Very few Imperials were foolish enough to brave the cold this far north, and the fast majority of the monks here were Nords. But his smile wouldn't last long.

Without a word, I placed the bag of Septims on the pew between us. His gaze dropped down to it, but there was no change in his expression. "What's this?"

"A gift."

Slowly he opened the bag and took a glance at what was inside, the clink of the coins the only sound in the chapel. I think he might even have been holding his breath. His gaze darted up to mine, his eyes shuttered. "I believe the word is 'bribe'."

"You can call it that if you prefer. I favour 'gift' personally, but there's often not much between them."

"May I ask why you are attempting to bribe me, sir?"

Fear prickled at the top of my spine, because if I had misjudged this man and he told me to go to Oblivion everything might be lost. I wasn't so much of a fool as to let the fear show on my face. "Only for this," I said, gesturing around the chapel. "A chance to sit and talk and discuss."

"Discuss what, exactly?"

"Why, whether there's anything I can do to help you in any way."

"Ah." He nodded, and splayed his long knuckley fingers over the bag of coin. "So this is only the prelude to a larger bribe. I see your purpose."

 _I have not misjudged him. I know I haven't._

"I'm a wealthy man, Brother...?"

"Brother Jirav." He said his name wearily, as if it was somehow the first defeat in a battle between us. "And your name, sir?"

"It isn't important what my name is. All you need to know is that I am rich and have a great deal of power and influence in County Anvil."

Alarm flashed across in his face. He'd taken it as a threat.

Perhaps I had misjudged him, although not in the way I'd feared. His worry bit deeper than I'd realised. It took him a few moments to steel himself, to take control of the emotions that warred on his face. He flinched when I laid my hand on his arm. "I mean only to help, Brother," I told him softly. "I intend no harm to you or yours. I swear it on the Nine Divines and on everything I hold dear."

Doubt flickered in his eyes. His gaze flitted towards the bag of gold, and he moistened his lips. "What... what do you..."

"I want you to teach me how to read an Elder Scroll."

He blinked. "You..." Another blink. He tilted his head as if he hadn't quite heard me correctly. "I'm sorry, you want to–" Then he gave a laugh, a startled outburst that sounded far too loud in the stilled hush of the chapel. He clapped his hand over his mouth to silence himself. "You... you want to learn how to read an Elder Scroll?" he said when he'd regained some control over his voice. His eyes were bright, as if he thought I had to be jesting.

 _If only._

"That's right."

"But that's... Why..." He paused, visibly controlling his thoughts. "Do you _have_ an Elder Scroll?"

"Not as yet, but I believe I know where one might be found."

"Gods. But such things are dangerous, sir. They ought to be in the hands of the Moth Priests. If you are aware of one which has yet to be discovered–"

"I'm afraid I have need of it, Brother Jirav. But once I have finished with it–"

"Or once it's finished with you, you mean. You do know what could happen? Instant blindness, Madness. That's what you risk–"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

Our voices had been edging up. Now mine rang out, loud enough to make him flinch again and cast a glance at the door to the chapel as if someone might have entered in the interim.

I tried again, my voice a little softer. "If you have–"

He held up his had to forestall me with another glance at the door. "Not here," he told me. "Perhaps... if you'd meet me around the back of the chapel. We can talk in peace there."

~o~O~o~

It occurred to me as I rounded the side of the chapel that he had lured me outside with the intention of killing me. I knew enough about the Order of the Ancestor Moth to know that fighting – and by extension killing – was part of their training.

I've gone too far the other way, I thought, pressing my hand against the pocket where I kept the cowl. From a too-trusting boy to a man who never trusts anyone, not even a monk.

He was waiting for me, shivering despite the bearskin cloak wrapped tightly around him. The hood was pulled up concealing his face from view. All I could see was his breath gusting out in rapid puffs of mist. Overhead the silhouettes of bats swooped to snatch moths out of the sky.

He shifted his weight and spoke before I could.

"I have a sister," he said, his gaze fixed on the ground. He spoke rapidly, his voice numbed. "In County Anvil. My mother died a couple of winters back, and my father... he had a stroke in Hearthfire this year. It didn't kill him, thank Arkay, but... sometimes I think, gods forgive me, I think it might have been better if it had. My sister does her best to... to care for him and tend to the farm, but she hasn't the money to hire farmhands and I _know_..."

I moved towards him. "Brother Jirav."

At my touch he flinched and lifted his gaze to mine.

"This is wrong," he said, quietly. "Whatever it is you're about to ask me to do, it is _wrong_. It will mean me betraying my brothers, my vows to the Order, everything I swore to protect."

And yet we both knew he'd do it anyway.

I leaned closer. "Brother Jirav, listen to me. Let us pretend for a minute that whatever preparations I make are successful. You would know far more about that than me. That's why I'm here, after all, to learn from you. Once I am finished with the Elder Scroll, I would have no further use for it. Like you said, it's a dangerous thing to have around."

"You'd bring it here? To... to the Temple?"

"Where else? I'd bring it to the one person I trusted. To you."

And there, underneath his misery and guilt: a gleam in his eyes. "A new Elder Scroll," he whispered, while I smiled blandly. "One as yet undiscovered? And I could be the one to... to... discover it?" The growing desire in his face was tempered then by a flicker of doubt. "Still, sir, you risk a great deal."

"I know. But I believe it's worth it." I hesitated. "If you think it's possible I could learn to read one..."

He considered this, chewing on his upper lip. He ran his gaze over my face. It was a rare moment, an instant of being seen, of being recognised, and a shiver of joy as crystal-clear as the water in the altar rippled through me. "I cannot say for certain," he said, finally. "Not yet, and perhaps not ever. Are you aware of what this means?"

"I've read the Pohlunius tome on the subject."

"Good, then at least you have some idea of what you are risking. And it may be that no matter how much effort you put in, you will never be able to truly read the Scroll. Or you will never be able to prepare yourself for the onslaught of such knowledge–"

"I know I might go blind."

"It's not only your eyesight you risk, but your sanity too. And, if I may, you can claim now that you are ready to pay the price, but you may feel differently when it comes to it. We lose novitiates every year who would have sworn they were ready to accept the consequences. May I ask what it is you wish to find within?"

"A name only."

"That's all?"

"It's important to me."

"Hmm." He studied me for a little while longer, frowning. "I don't suppose you'd consider joining the Order?"

I laughed. "Why on Nirn does everyone want me to become a monk all of a sudden?"

"We always have call for new novitiates."

I shook my head and laughed again. He was smiling back at me now, a shy uncertain little smile and I decided I liked him very much. "I think not. I have a life, Brother Jirav. I'm _married_. And even if I wasn't I doubt I'd be cut out for that sort of life."

"I understand. But you realise you will have to live that life to a certain extent. Everything we do here, tending to our brothers in the crypts below our feet, caring for the moths, spinning their silk–" He brought the palms of his hands flat together. "All of this together is a form of meditation."

"Then I can't just... There isn't a technique you can teach me?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't. Not in good conscience. It wouldn't be safe."

I exhaled sharply. I might have sank down into the snow and buried my head in my hands if it wouldn't have meant freezing my backside off. "You're saying I would have to live the life of a monk?" It was one thing to corrupt a single monk who was already ripe for corruption, but even I couldn't corrupt all of them.

"Perhaps not. If they thought you were meant to be here, a new novitiate sent at the behest of the White-Gold Tower..."

I lifted my head and stared at him. He faltered, turning his head away as if he didn't want me to see the rising urgency in his eyes.

"I think..." he said, more quietly, "I think perhaps we could make the other monks think you have every right to be here. If we were able to forge a letter–"

"I believe that could be arranged," I said dryly. At his questioning glance I cleared my throat. "I mean, I have some contacts. It isn't just that though. I have other responsibilities. I can't drop everything. Aside from... from my family, I have an Elder Scroll to find." Not to mention a guild of backstabbing, untrustworthy thieves to manage.

"Exceptions can be made. A sickening family member, perhaps? It wouldn't be seen as strange. But it's true you would need to sacrifice a great deal."

"For how long? How long does it take to teach someone to read an Elder Scroll?"

I didn't really expect a reply. The monks could study for a decade, perhaps two before they were considered ready to read their first scroll. Some never were.

For how long, I'd asked, but I already knew the answer: however long it took.

~o~O~o~

And so I became a monk.

Brother Jirav was as good as his word, although in the end he needn't have bothered. The cowl worked its magic, and the other novitiates barely even noticed me. I forged the letter, and I don't think anyone even bothered to read it. I suspect I could simply had turned up and no one would have questioned why I was there, which meant I'd corrupted Jirav for no reason at all.

If I hadn't come to like Jirav so much I might not even have cared. I'd saved the farm in Anvil after all with a windfall inheritance from a distant relative no one had ever heard of, and back then I had even less time for Scrolls than I had for the gods, so I hadn't given two fucks about the vows he'd made. But I _liked_ him, and the guilt ate away at me.

I can't say we ever became friends, since the cowl put a stop to that, but our Imperial race was a common bond between us, particularly here, where we were practically in Skyrim.

In the dead of winter, the wind howled like all the dremora in Oblivion, rattling the ill-fitting glass in the frost-rimed windowpane, and the snow piled up against the door. When it was our turn to clear the snow from the door, Jirav and I were always paired together, since we were the only Imperials and the Nords would inevitably and unfairly take the brunt of the work if we were paired with them.

I had told Jirav that I could never have been a monk but now I wonder. There was a kind of peace to those long months. That first winter we were snowed in and the mountains were impassable, the weather so bad I couldn't risk the long journey home to Anvil. Even the journey to Bruma was too risky, with talk of half-starved trolls swarming down from the mountains and waylaying travellers. I had no choice but to stay, and my longing to see Millona grew so painful it was a solid ache in my chest. I wondered that she could not feel it too. I wrote her letter after letter after letter, and drank the monastery's wine, while I massaged my ink-stained cramping fingers, and read back over words which she would never read. Some of those letters were more coherent than others, but they all played on the same general theme: how much I missed her, how sorry I was, and to a one they ended with the same line: _I'm coming home, my love_.

I never sent them. There seemed little point. I wrote them more for myself than for her, to convince myself that this what I was doing was not a waste of time.

For a man who'd spent most of his life skirting the southern edge of the country and its heartland the north came as a shock. The ever-constant chill to the air, even in summer, and in winter, the frost cut bone-deep and rimed the windows. The snow piled so deep you could sink up to your thighs crossing from the monks' quarters to the chapel and back again. There was a never ending battle to keep the snow at bay, and the Nords would laugh at me and Jirav when it was our turn to clear the path. It was friendly enough, that laughter, and it had no malice to it, only the very slightest edge of provincial outlanders who for once had the edge in a country that was not their own.

It was harsh and brutal and unrelenting, and I spent most of my time there freezing my bollocks off, but it was also beautiful. There was a stark beauty to the patchwork-play of shadows against the moon-bright shining snow, and on clear nights the sky would be filled with dancing ribbons of coloured light, and through those shivering veils the moons and the stars could be seen. It was a strange sight, entrancing and eerie, unnaturally silent.

A few snatched moments would stretch to an hour, until the chill set so deep into my bones I wasn't sure I'd be able to move. Under the eerie silence of the dancing lights and the stars, it no longer seemed to matter whether I was Corvus Umbranox or Jackdaw of Bravil or the Gray Fox or a nameless stranger. All my heartache and my troubles shrank to a pinprick, until the cold finally grew too much for me and I managed to rouse myself and walk back to the quarters to defrost my aching body by the fire, where one of the Nords would scold me for my foolishness. They were used to the dancing lights and thought them pretty enough, but hardly the miracle of nature they seemed to me. Inevitably there would be much eye-rolling and well-meaning jesting while I warmed through, sipping the mulled wine as the numbness in my extremities wore off, and the agonising prickle began to intensify. It didn't matter. For those few moments where I was freed from my servitude, it was worth it.

It was a life I could have lived, I think. I hadn't known it at the time, but looking back, I realise I could have lived out my life there. In that monastery, of all places, I might have been able to find a little happiness.

They noticed me, these men who had been trained to hold an infinite number of possibilities in their minds. To see what was and what might have been and what would never be, all at once. I was still a pale shade of a man to them, but I had more substance there than anywhere else. They knew, I think, and Jirav in particular; they recognised that something wasn't right about me, that some strange magic had drawn itself around me like a veil.

Elsewhere I was nothing but a stranger. There I was almost _known_.

The monastery had a fine library, mostly allegorical and historical and religious works, but there were some novels tucked away in a quiet but well-trodden corner. Part of our duties involved reading to the blind Moth Priests in the catacombs, and since I had a pleasantly modulated voice and a knack for doing the voices that task often fell to me. They _asked_ for me, although sadly not by name.

The visits to the catacombs always unnerved me, however. It was the weight of silence down there. I always moved quietly, but even there the noise my footsteps made seemed deadened, and my throat tightened, as if the silence weighed heavy on my chest. The priests seemed eerie to me at first, the rustling of their silk robes a kind of off-kilter discordant music, echoed in the faint humming sound of the moths that flocked around them. I knew something of what they did here, how they wove the song of the ancestors into the warp and weft of the silk, and it seemed as though something older and stranger than the Nine was at work. It reminded me of something Sanguine had taught me long ago: that for some gods it's the act of worship that matters, and not the belief itself.

To be honest, they creeped the fuck out of me at first. I hated how they seemed to know I was there, no matter how silently I stood, even despite their blindness.

At first. Then I began to get to know them.

Brother Michel, the ancient Breton with a sweet tooth who longed for the elaborate sugar-and-nut folded pastry concoctions he remembered from his youth in High Rock. And Brother Primus, who always made sure to ask wistfully about the bathhouse in Bruma whenever one of us had paid a visit to the city, hoping, I suspect, for salacious details and vivid descriptions of the female form and the act of love. It was usually Brother Holger who took this onerous and solemn religious duty on himself, keeping the ancient priest entertained with tales that raised even my eyebrows. The underground corridors of the catacombs echoed with the sound of the blind priest cackling and Brother Primus's rumbling filthy laughter. I suspect I had a few stories that would top Holger's (and mine were true), but I hesitated to share them.

Mostly I tried to avoid thoughts of sex. It was a sharp reminder of how lonely I was, and how much I missed Millona. My loneliness was a crack in my heart. There were nights when I could not stop the tears, when I curled into a tight ball, and bit into the bedding like a man at the mercy of a battlefield surgeon, about to lose his leg. My pain was a physical entity, ripping and tearing at me.

It might have shamed me, except that I wasn't the only one that cried at night. We all had our doubts, our own petty fears. I cried less often than some of the other novitiates.

And of course I wasn't always there. My time was divided my time between the monastery, the Imperial City and Anvil.

In the Imperial City, I made a point to drink in the Rat in my guise as the Fox. I made myself seen. My predecessor never did and I think that was a mistake. Half the thieves I knew never quite believed he existed until I took over ownership of the cowl. It was exhausting though, and as much as they respected me, they feared me too, their wariness as thick as smoke in the air. I rarely lasted more than a drink or two before I couldn't bear it any longer. I'd slip the cowl off and drink myself into a stupor in quiet anonymity, listening to the atmosphere shift from formal and cautious into relaxed debauchery around me. It was usually busy enough and raucous enough that I could pretend I was with them, part of the crowd instead of a hanger on at the outskirts.

I'd join in with the good-natured laughter at Nico, who'd got himself a girl and was utterly, hopelessly head over heels in love with her. He'd never be good-looking, skinny as he was, with his ears sticking out and his skin pocked with acne scars, but that all fell away when he looked at her. She was a Breton, skinny as he was, with a rabbity face and close-cropped hair, and she was every bit as in love with him as he was with her. It was sickeningly adorable the way they were together, still in that all-over-each-other manner common to newly-minted lovers who'd never quite believed they'd ever find anyone.

Somehow it had got out that his full name was Nicodemius, and none of us would ever let him live it down. From time to time, when the murmur and mutter in the inn would drop to a muted hush, the cry of, "Oh, Nicodeeeemius!" would ring out across the Rat, and everyone would burst out laughing. He'd flush scarlet right to his ears, and she'd wrap her arm around his head and pull him close, grinning, their hands tightly knitted. It made my heart ache to see them.

It wasn't much. It wasn't real. But it was close enough.

~o~O~o~

And then there was Anvil. Most of my time in those seemingly endless years were spent in the Jerralls, learning the fine art of reading an Elder Scroll without scorching my eyeballs right out of their sockets, but looking back it seems to be a time of returning to Anvil.

I always came back to Anvil and to Millona. I couldn't stay away.

I tried. I was still haunted by the dark memories of that first year. I'll never know for certain how close I came to hurting her, whether I could ever have been capable of such a thing. I tell myself I never could have, but I know how quickly and how glibly a lie can rise to my lips. And I always did lie to myself most of all.

I tried to stay away. Every time I stopped in at the Brina Cross inn for a tankard of ale and there I would tell myself that it wasn't too late to turn back. I never did.

It was like an addiction, I think, that desperate yearning to see her, and no matter how long I spent watching her it was never enough.

Each time I visited I brought her gifts: a length of the finest silk from the monastery, dyed the same shade as the heather on the highlands; a bottle of her favourite wine, a silver comb for her hair.

This time I had brought her a book. Unfortunately it wasn't a very good book.

I sat perched in the window seat with the terrible book in my lap, and Millona at the desk, writing, the soft skritch-skritch of her quill keeping me company.

"So," I told her quietly, "I'm a monk now. Not that I've been getting much sex anyway for the last year or so, but still..."

I paused, giving her the space to reply. She didn't. I sighed.

"Not that I'm complaining." Although I clearly was. "It's cold up in the Jeralls. My hands ache. And I think about you a lot. Every day."

Another silence.

"Funny thing. I might be going to Morrowind after all. There's a book I need to track down, and I've a contact there who might be able to help. I'm having no bloody luck writing letters though. If I do go I'll be sure to bring you back a bottle of Sujamma."

Silence.

I sighed and lifted the book in my lap. "The new edition of a Guide to Anvil is out. I bought you a copy, although frankly I wish I hadn't bothered. Here, listen to this tripe: 'The ruler of Anvil is Countess Millona Umbranox.'" I read. "'Her husband disappeared many years ago, and most persons would agree that Her Ladyship is better off without him, for he was a light and frivolous person, and given to loose and riotous behaviour likely to promote scandal.' That spiteful little witch." I slapped the book down. "I'm sure you'll be glad to hear she's much kinder about you."

A pause. No reply. Of course.

I slipped from my seat, and took the book across to her. As I laid it delicately on the table the skritch of the quill paused for an instant, then continued, wet ink gleaming on the parchment. My gaze lingered on the nape of her neck, how her plaited hair left it uncovered and how the firelight burnished her skin burnished, and gods, I longed to kiss her. Just a brush of my lips to her skin, nothing more than that.

I walked away, and took my seat back in the window with a far more agreeable book. I read, and for a little while I managed to lose myself, until I came to and noticed Millona had stopped writing. She had drawn _A Guide to Anvil_ close and was reading, turning the pages with slow methodical movements, her expression unreadable

"Take no notice of it," I told her. "It's a piece of spite and bile by a woman who doesn't know what she's talking about. Although admittedly she's got me spot on."

A lick of her fingers. Another turn of the page. I studied her profile, her ink-stained fingers, and longed to kiss the tips of each and every one.

I had to stop coming here, I thought. Tormenting myself like this, with memories of a life I might never have back again. As if things would ever be the same again if I ever did manage to break the curse. Pretending we still had a life together was like twisting a knife deeper into an already ugly wound. I was a fool to keen coming back here. And I'd never be able to stop.

With some difficulty, I turned my gaze back to my book. The words swam before me. The flickering movement of bats outside the window drew my eye.

At the sound of fabric rustling, I glanced up, opening my mouth for yet more meaningless pointless prattle. Instead, I watched, stunned, as Millona crossed to the fire, and flung the book into the flames.

A few moments passed before I could bring myself to speak. Only when she stoked the fire up higher, did I find my voice, cracked as it was. "You really ought to take better care of your books," I said.

She turned her head to look at me. Her gaze met mine, and her brows knotted as she studied me as if I were a puzzle to be solved.

She was like me in many ways – a fighter. Wasn't that why I loved her? She'd kept on fighting, despite all the shit life had thrown at her – the loss of her brother and mother, her father's general shittiness. All the lost pregnancies. And me, her selfish bastard of a husband, upping and leaving her when she needed me most.

I might not be strong enough to fight a daedric curse, but she might be.

Fool. It happened from time to time, her noticing me. And every time – _every time_ – I let myself blunder into the trap, let myself be impaled on hope and wishful thinking. _Fool_.

And still... Because, what if?

I pushed myself up from the table, walked across to her. I was afraid to drop my gaze from hers and so I held it every step of the way. She took a breath as I came closer, far closer than might be appropriate for a stranger and his countess. I waited for her to flinch away, but she did not react at all. The Millona I remembered would have laughed at me coming in so close, but the eyes of this Millona were filled with nothing but the flat glazed pain of heartache and loneliness. I'd done that to her. I had broken her heart.

I took hold of her shoulders. "Millona," I said. "It's me. It's Corvus. It's your husband."

Was it my imagination, or did I see the slightest flicker in her eyes? Just the candlelight guttering, and still, I cupped her cheeks. Her skin was smooth and cool as marble. There were new lines engraved around her eyes, and across her forehead. I lifted my thumb and ran it across her brow. Her eyes fluttered closed and then snapped open.

It felt like standing on the other side of a window through which no sound could pierce. She couldn't see me, couldn't hear me. I was there and yet I wasn't. I could scream and rail and shriek at her and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference.

I leaned in and kissed her flat smooth forehead. It felt like kissing the forehead of a marble statue.

"I'm going to change this," I promised her. "I'm coming home, my love. I swear it."


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N: Thanks to Tafferling for betaing. As always, all comments are highly appreciated and I welcome constructive criticism.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty-One**

 _'For long the Cyro-Nordics had exported ancestor-silks to other regions, simple yet exotic shawls woven from the silks of an indigenous gypsy moth and inscribed with the requisite genealogy of its buyer. Under the Cult, however, ancestor and moth became synonymous: the singing and hymnal spirits of one's forebears are caught in a special silk-gathering ritual, the resource of which is used to create any manner of vestment or costume. The swishing of this material during normal movement reproduces the resplendent ancestral chorus contained therein-it quickly became a sacred custom among the early Nibenese, which has persisted to the present day. Monks of the higher orders of the Cult of the Ancestor-Moth are able to forego the magical ritual needed to enchant this fabric, and, indeed, prefer instead to wear the moths about the neck and face. They are able to attract the ancestor-moths through the application of finely ground bark-dust gathered from the gypsy moth's favorite tree, and through the sub-vocalization of certain mantras. They must chant the mantras constantly to maintain skin contact with the ancestor-moths, a discipline that they endure for the sake of some cosmic balance. When a monk interrupts these mantras, in conversation for example, the moths burst from him in glorious fashion every time he speaks, only to light back upon his skin when he resumes the inaudible chant.'_

– _Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Cyrodiil_

If you've ever been deep underground, then you know how heavy air can be. The catacombs of the monastery were still and silent, the weight of the stone above pressing down on my hunched shoulders. Unlit, of course, since the Moth Priests had no need of light, and being sacred didn't make the moths that thronged the air any less of a liability around lit torches.

By the light of a lantern I explored the Catacombs where the priests slept and the moths were bred. Here I aided Brother Holger with the ritual of purification in the Room of Metamorphosis, burning incense to kill away any parasites that might endanger the fragile newly transformed moths.

There was a modest-sized library, with a small but growing number of books with blank pages. Only when a man trails his fingers down the paper, does he feel the lettering embossed on the thick paper. It was the concept of a Moth Priest now long since departed, who had been cursed with lay brethren who were shit at reading aloud. Exasperated with what he described as 'borderline illiterate idiots', who stumbled over the words or, _worse,_ insisted on putting on silly voices, he devised a system so that even a blind man might be able to read for himself, feeling his way through the text as he might feel his way through a labyrinth.

And then there was the sparring room. We were trained in the art of the katana and in the Way of the Peaceful Fist, which despite its name involved incapacitating an opponent as swiftly and as brutally as possible. Blind they might have been, but they were warriors, these men, and put up against the best the Arena could offer, I have no doubt a Moth Priest would win out. Their sparring seemed a graceful deadly dance, with no sound but the occasional grunt as a fist connected and the silvery shivery song of their silks rippling with every leap and twist.

Since I was inevitably paired with Jirav, who was utterly and irredeemably useless at fighting, I rather enjoyed it when they set us novitiates to spar against each other. It was worse when they would set a novitiate against one of the blind priests in a horrible game of blind-man's-buff. I cannot even say why I found it so frightening, although perhaps it was because I was a man so used to staying silent and undetected, it seemed unnatural for a blind man to hunt me down as surely as if he could smell me.

Once, when it was my turn to be hunted, they extinguished the lights, leaving us in total darkness. A terror descended upon me. The smell in the room was no longer of sweating male bodies, but of damp and decay, and when the priest came at me, I couldn't help the cry of fear that rose unbidden in my throat. When the lights were raised they found me pressed against the edge of the pit, shaking with fear.

The prelate who had been hunting me stooped over me, his expression concerned. "Brother, are you all right?"

"He's afraid of the dark," one of the watching novitiates said, and sniggering spread through their ranks.

The prelate's head turned towards them and they flinched back. They might have been more used to the preternatural insight of those blind eyes than I was, but not by much, and I was better used to hiding my fear. "And well he might be," the prelate snapped. "I'd wager your brother here knows more of the dangers the darkness can hold than any of you snivelling little pups." He set his hand on my shoulder. I flinched, but he was gentle enough, gentle but insistent. "Up now, Brother. We shall try again, but perhaps you might do better with a blindfold instead."

And so I tried again, and did a little better, in that this time I didn't shame myself by cowering in terror. Through the blindfold I could see a glimmer of light.

A small kindness, but one I appreciated. It reminded me that I was amongst good men.

~o~O~o~

A moth fluttered down to land on the woven silk and when it didn't take flight when I blew gently on it, I placed my hand against the tapestry and let it climb on my fingers. The tapestry depicted Reman Cyrodiil as a babe being placed on the Dragon Throne. The red diamond set in his forehead sent rays of scarlet light playing over the marble columns of the throne room, and I had taken particular care over the depiction of Sed-Yenna, the holy shepherdess who dug the sacred child out of the earth of Sancre Tor and nursed him with milk meant for her own stillborn baby.

The moth had given me a chance to flex my aching fingers, and Jirav an opportunity to glance over my shoulder. "Huh."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing." He paused, then cleared his throat. "She's a little... um... curvier than I'd imagined her to be. And fewer clothes. I thought she was supposed to be a shepherdess. They don't normally dress like that do they? I always was a bookish sort of lad but I'm pretty sure I'd've noticed."

"It was hotter in Cyrodiil back then."

He fanned himself, grinning. "It's getting hotter in here as well."

"Concentrate on your own work, you dirty bugger."

"I would but it's agonisingly tedious. Yours is far more interesting to look at. You're bloody lucky the Moth Priests are blind. If Brother Primus could see _that_ he'd snaffle it out of your hands before you could blink."

I laughed, clenching and unclenching my fingers to work out the ache. Even the smallest scraps of silk had a slight vibration to them, which I felt as a tingling that worked its way right down into the bones of my fingers. Another moth landed on the back of my hand, its feathered antennae drooping softly as it investigated me. Its wings were tipped with black, and so large they covered nearly the whole of the back of my hand. I brought it closer to study the brown and gold markings on its back, wondering if I could work those markings into the tapestry somehow. It was said those markings carried the echo of an ancestor spirit.

Without warning, the moth took flight. A moment later the silvery chiming of silks announced the approach of a priest. His eyes were veiled with a scrap of silk dyed mauve, and he paused in the doorway, his head turning to fix his unseeing gaze upon me, although I had made no sound.

"The prelate wishes to speak with you," he told me.

I exchanged a glance with Jirav, then cleared my throat. "Me? Are you sure?"

"He was very clear, Brother. Will you come?"

I was already on my feet. "I don't suppose he asked for me by name?" He didn't answer, only turned with the expectation that I would follow him. I glanced back and pointed at Jirav. "Hands off, you. If I come back and it's all sticky I'll know exactly who to blame."

He went scarlet and I grinned as I left.

The priest led me to a part of the Catacombs which I had not visited before, off-limits to the novitiates. I'd lost none of my curious nature, but to explore a place thoroughly demands a degree of idleness, and the Order kept me far too busy to go sneaking around in the pitch black, especially when acting too quickly could mean losing everything.

I was blindfolded and led down a long winding series of carved stone steps, and along a narrow passage, the curious stop-and-start nature of the route a clear indication that the way was heavily trapped. I tried to memorise what I could, but soon the monk released his grip on my arm, and through the blindfold I saw the flare of a candle being kindled into life. He told me to remove the blindfold and I obeyed, blinking and glancing back along the way we'd come for a moment until I noticed the priest's stern expression. He handed me the lantern and once more I followed him.

We were now so deep I could feel the changed pressure on my ears. I was careful to watch my every step so as not to crush any moths on the floor. The darkness crowded in, pressing in on the soft golden glow of the lantern. A faint fragrance filled the air, like an exotic spice. It was rich and heady, subtle, but dizzying, and with every inhalation I felt a little more light-headed, as if the very air was intoxicating. It meant my recollection of all that happened next is fuzzy.

This far beneath the surface was darkness's realm. The moths chimed; they sang like delicate silvery bells. It was said some of the oldest Moth Priests, the ones who were half-mad from reading the Scrolls, knew how to sing back.

The moths danced around me, brushing against my hair, the back of the hand carrying the lantern. So many of them I could feel the puffs of breath against my skin where their wings stirred the air.

In a doorway, my guide abandoned me. I paused there, uncertain now. There was no illumination in the room within aside from the light cast by my lantern. I could hear the faint bubbling of a samovar and the whispering rustle of silks somewhere in the darkness. I lifted the lantern and the scant light played across the face of the prelate, his sightless eyes uncovered.

"You wanted to see me, Brother," I said, still certain that he had made a mistake, that it was not me he wished to see at all, but Jirav.

He beckoned me. "Come in."

The room seemed as I imagine a womb must feel like to an unborn child: warm and safe, and filled with constant sound and movement. I felt that I was safe here, a cradling sensation which I immediately and instinctively mistrusted. Whether I was right to do so, I have not yet made up my mind.

The prelate indicated that I should sit and sit I did.

"I am sorry about before, Brother," he said. "I had not realised you were afraid of the dark."

"It's not the dark I'm afraid of," I said, and my voice sounded very high. "I'm _fine_ with the dark. It's being hunted that scares me." I drew a breath. "It won't happen again."

He tilted his head. His irises were very pale, so light they could hardly be seen against the sclera, and his pupils were very large, visibly shrinking when he moved his head closer to the light. "Nevertheless, it must have made you wonder if this vocation is truly for you," he said, and paused, waiting for me to reply. I said nothing; I felt far too light-headed and didn't trust myself to speak in case the truth came spilling out. After a moment or two had passed, he continued. "There is no shame in being afraid, Brother. And if you realise this life is not one that calls to you, there is no shame in that either. What is it that brought you here?"

I hesitated before answering. "I wanted knowledge."

"As good a reason as any, I suppose." As he spoke, he poured some heated water from the samovar into a small porcelain bowl filled with tea. The tightly knitted buds within unfurled, staining the water a dusky pink. The prelate set the pot aside and handed the bowl to me, inclining his head. "Drink."

I hesitated. Steam wisped up from the tea, along with a sharp acrid scent that made my lips pucker. "Is this a test?"

"Yes. And no."

"I don't understand."

"There is no failure in this room, Brother. If the Stone does not work for you, you have failed nothing. Not all amongst our number are able to use it. Most can not. So you may drink without fear."

Well, that was debatable.

A moth alighted on my ear, ticklish enough to make me want to shake my head to dislodge it. Nervous of moving too quickly in case I injured a moth, I curled my fingers around the porcelain bowl and brought it to my lips. The tea was bitter enough to make me grimace, but I swallowed it down, tasting the last traces of it in the back of my throat.

"What's in it?" I asked, and could have kicked myself for only asking that question after I'd drunk the vile stuff down.

"It's an ancient recipe. Likely as old as the Order itself, although far weaker than the first Moth Priests would have drunk."

I ran my tongue around my teeth and fished out a bud which I nipped between my front teeth. It burst with a sudden unexpectedly sweet flavour. "The first Moth Priests. This is a drug?"

"A manner of drug, yes." His voice seemed to have grown richer, the light a little brighter. He nodded towards the bowl, and I cannot remember whether he asked me aloud if I wanted another cup, only that I nodded, and somehow the bowl was refilled and I was drinking again.

As I drank, he spoke of the Order of the Ancestor Moth, not the Order as it was today, but about its roots, roots which wormed their way back through history, older than the Septims, older than the Empire. When the Atmorans migrated to Tamriel they bought their tribal gods south, and amongst them the moth, sacred symbol of Julianos.

Through drugs and dreaming it was possible for a mind to ride the currents of the dreamsleeve borne on the wings of a moth, to whisper secrets into the ear of dreaming men ear, to ride the dreamscape as a horseman might ride hills and valleys. The most powerful Moth Princes could send their consciousness into a swarm of moths, and scatter themselves from one end of the continent to another. They could whisper into the ear of an Emperor until he willingly grasped a vial of poison and drank it down.

"Not," the prelate said, "that we do any of that these days."

I grinned, sinking back in the chair. "No. Of course not. You work for the good of the Empire."

"We work," he corrected me gently, "for the good of the Scrolls."

The song of the moths around me intensified. There were so many of them I could taste the shiver of dust from their wings, and I recognised it as the origin of the spicy fragrance on the air. There was a trace of it in the tea as well, and I squinted suspiciously at the bowl. "Hang on, are there moths in this?"

"Moth dust, yes. Humanely collected, naturally. And ground canticle bark."

I had the distinct suspicion that he was trying not to smile. And then there was another cup of tea and I could see the dust on the air, like motes caught in a beam of light. When each speck landed on my skin it caused a wave of gooseflesh to ripple over me. No longer did I flinch away from the brushing kiss of each moth, but welcomed them. My heart pulsed in time to each wing beat. I could see colours I'd never seen before, and more: the network of veins and capillaries that threaded through the world, a fine silver thread that linked the prelate's soul back through the Dreamsleeve and through the lives he had led before, like the stitching in a seam binding the world together together. And if I turned to look, I thought the same might be true of me, that I might see all the lives I had led before.

If I was brave enough to look. I wasn't.

 _I'm shit-faced_.

"I need to eat moths more often," I said, and laughed, dropping my head back. The moths laughed with me, a little dubiously, and murmured amongst themselves.

The prelate favoured me with an indulgent smile and drew out a domed wooden casket. A susurration rose up from the moths, like a sudden excited whispering passing through a crowd. I held my breath and sat up, feeling like a leaf tossed this way and that by a buffeting wind. _This is important, twat-face_ , the moths told me. _Pay attention._

The casket was of polished wood, lacquered and polished until it shone softly, and the markings in the wood resembled the markings on a moth's wing. He unlatched it, the top parted, unfolding like the petals of a flower.

"Or like a–" I began to say aloud, and broke off when the moth that had landed on my ear whispered fiercely, _Don't you bloody dare._

The prelate frowned, and I cleared my throat and pushed myself up. For a moment, it seemed like I might go too far and topple right off the chair. "Like a... um, some sort of... thing. Um... Whatsit."

"Indeed."

I squinted down at the bowl. The flecks of tea on the porcelain glared up at me. "Is there skooma in this?"

He sighed. "No skooma."

"Just dead moths and bits of tree."

 _Concentrate_.

I put the bowl down, and sat forward. Inside the casket something nestled, wrapped in dove-gray silk. The moths rose in a cloud as he uncovered the scrying stone. There seemed more meaning to their song now, as if I could understand their words if I only listened hard enough. In the Stone I could see the distorted reflection of my own face, and the light of the lantern. It wasn't the cheap smooth-blown glass ball the Mages' Guild purchased in bulk, nor the polished globe of quartz, but a lump of raw crystal, all crevices and jagged crystalline edges. I leaned closer, and felt a hand set between my shoulder blades, gently pushing me forward. I could feel it so clearly I was certain it had to be the prelate, but he had taken his seat again and was watching me.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" I asked.

"It's not I who decides that."

"Who does then? The moths?"

No reply, only his blind eyes rolling up a little. Another pressure in my back, a little more insistent now. The moths drew closer, settling around me, on my skin, and I grumbled at them to stop crowding me. They felt like an extension of my flesh, and every so often one would take wing, and I'd feel it as a prickling little tug of my attention. It was as if my awareness had spread beyond the confines of my body and into the moths.

I stared at the stone until my eyes ached and huffed a sigh. "I don't see anything–"

I stopped. There was something there. In the expanse of white, I could see a darker patch, like a flaw in a jewel. Like a black flash of lightning across a bone-white sky. The depths of the crystal was not a flat expanse of white any longer, but a patchwork of light and shadow. Every inch of my skin thrummed with moths, and through them I knew the prelate was taking note, his expression intent.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. I don't know that I can see anything..."

"Brother." His voice was softly chiding.

"Snow." I said the word flatly, and with certainty, and it was echoed in the chiming song of the moths – _snowsnowsnow_. "I see snow."

 _Ah_. He hadn't spoken aloud, I'm certain of it, but I heard him anyway, heard his grunt of acknowledgement relayed through the prickle of legs on my skin.

I brought the tips of my fingers to the rough surface of the crystal. The Jerralls? It could have been, perhaps, but then the image shifted, shrinking deeper into the stone and the outer circumference cleared and darkened, like a night sky filled with dissolving fog. It left the outer reaches of the stone dark and glassy, an inky midnight blue streaked with shimmering ribbons of light. Where my hand touched on the stone, it felt frozen, so cold my knuckles ached and reddened. I leaned closer, and despite the warmth of the room the air around the Stone was freezing. My visible breath gusted out.

 _Bit nippy in here, innit?_ one of the moths commented and the others shushed it. _Well_ , it grumbled to itself, _it bloody fucking well is._

Inside the stone, the image sharpened rapidly, as if I was falling through the air, towards the ground. A dark structure became wooden steps leading up the side of a mountain, precarious and slippery with frost.

 _Tell us,_ the moths whispered. _Tell us what you see_.

"I'm somewhere in the north." Still to this day I don't know if I spoke aloud, only that the moths echoed my words, the sound they made like ripples spreading out over the surface of the lake even after the stone that caused them had sunk to the bottom,

 _Nearby?_

"I don't know. I don't-" The tip of my nose brushed against the stone. It was an unnerving sensation; I felt like a giant staring in at a world caught fast in a bubble that might pop at any moment. The stone's surface was covered in hoarfrost. "Skyrim," I whispered. "I think this is Skyrim."

Silence.

"I think–"

Whatever tether it was keeping me in the sky snapped. Without warning, I was falling. The moths clamoured, wings rustling in frantic panic, as I fell, plunging towards the rock. I wanted to fling myself backwards but I knew if I jerked away from the stone, I'd disturb the moths. It terrified me, that thought, that they would rise in a sudden cloud and tear part of me away with them. I'd lost too much of myself already. So instead I clung tight, and let myself fall.

I flinched when I struck the rock, but instead of splattering into a million pieces that were part moth and part man and part fox, I plunged through. It was like diving into freezing water. The rock closed in so tight I could barely breathe. Panic slammed through me, and a distant voice spoke, trying to sound calm – _easy, easy, Brother, you're safe._ The grip of terror eased a little, but only slightly, as the rock was torn away and I tumbled through into a vast empty darkness. The sensation of space around me was all too brief, and then I was trapped again, closed in tight in something that felt like a coffin.

And there was someone in there with me.

A woman. I could sense her rather than see her, and I knew she had pallid skin and was so cold she might have been frozen. I knew that no breath warmed her lips, but she wasn't dead, not yet, and terror rose within me, because I'd realised what she was and where I was – buried alive with a dead woman pressed against me.

The moths rose in a discordant jangle, their song now screams, and it was the most agonising sensation I'd ever felt, like my thoughts had been ripped into countless shreds. I crumpled from my seat and scrabbled away from the stone, the ground beneath me not stone but skin, shifting like a lover. My breath came in panting gasps, and I shivered so hard my teeth chattered.

Gradually I recovered. I felt the crushed bodies of moths beneath my palm, and shame flooded me.

"Well..." the prelate cleared his throat nervously. "That was most instructive."

I coughed, shook away the crumpled body of the dead moth and wiped my palm on my robes. "She had a Scroll."

"Who did?"

"The woman I saw. Only she wasn't a woman, she was a _thing_."

"A thing?"

"A vampire." I shuddered involuntarily, wrapped my arms around my legs and pressed my forehead against my knees. "I think I'm going to be sick," I said miserably.

"Ah yes. That would be the tea. Perhaps some ale would help? And a sweetroll." He laid his hand on my shoulder. "Do you think you can stand?"

I tried, felt my balance waver. "I think I'm better on the floor for the minute." My gaze darted towards the Stone. "That stone, is that how you seek out new Scrolls..."

"Savilla's Stone, and yes, it is indeed." Carefully, cautiously, he covered it up. "Although I feel I ought to point out that technically there is no such thing as a new Scroll. Only one that has not yet been discovered. Or rediscovered. Or that has decided to exist yet. You said she had a Scroll, this woman?"

"The vampire, yes."

"And in Skyrim too. How fascinating. I wonder..."

Absent-mindedly he pushed a sweet roll pushed into my hands. My stomach gave a momentary lurch, but in two bites the pastry was gone. It helped the nausea a little. "It shows you where they are?" I asked, and ran my tongue around the crevices of my mouth searching for crumbs.

"Indeed. And what obstacles might impede their retrieval."

I watched the prelate close the casket and snap the latch back into place. The moths settled down with a sound that seemed an exhalation. I'm not sure where it came from, the sudden urge I felt then, to tell him everything. Who I was. What I was. And that I had cheated and lied and conned my way into their ranks with the express purpose of stealing from them.

It was so sudden, so urgent, I had to clench my hands into fists and dig my nails into the meat of my palms to stop myself from spilling my guts, until the moment had passed.

I spent more time with the Stone after that. He taught me methods to guide the vision, and ways to read the information it gave other than through sight. It felt like a river rushing towards me, and there were ways to channel the water, as well as ways of persuading, through trickery and clever devices, water to run uphill.

I believe I aided in the retrieval of at least two Scrolls, one tucked away in a cluttered mansion filled to the brim with junk in Daggerfall, and the other from a shipwreck off the coast of Solstheim. But of the Scroll I saw in that first vision, hidden away in a cave in Skyrim, I could determine nothing more. Whenever I tried to scry for it, the stone clouded up as if a snowstorm had swept down to conceal everything from view.

 _Perhaps it doesn't want to be found,_ the Prelate told me. _No doubt it has its reasons. They can be capricious things, the Scrolls._

~o~O~o~

428 was a strange year. I saw my first Elder Scroll, brought down through the Pale Pass from Skyrim. Not one of the ones I had helped discover. The Moth Priest bringing it was a solemn stately Breton woman, and her presence amongst us brought the monastery to a flustered standstill. There were women amongst the Order, and a handful amongst the pensioned priests and prelates who lived out their lives underground, but none amongst the sighted novitiates and lay brethren. She was stern and serious, her auburn hair arranged in an elaborate series of braids and covered in a hat of white mink. I think half of the lay brethren, Jirav amongst them, fell desperately in love with her when she stopped in at the monastery to rest and to pray, and to indulge us with a glimpse of the Scroll itself.

It wasn't what I had expected. It was much larger, the casing at least three foot long, and intricately carved, fashioned from what appeared to be ivory. None of the Moth Priests could agree on what the casings were made of. One priest said dragon-bone, another ivory from the tusk of a mammoth, another a kind of mineral not dissimilar to ebony. Brother Luka, whose study of the Scrolls had pushed him rather closer to the realm of Sheogorath than usual, had cackled and claimed it was a very particular kind of cheese produced only in the Shivering Isles. I suspect he might have been joking, although it was always hard to tell with him.

At the sight of it a strange sensation tugged at my chest. The priests spoke of the Scrolls as if they were alive, as if they were more than simple prophecies that might or might not come to pass, but sentient things with minds and petty rivalries of their own – as if anything about the Elder Scrolls could be said to be petty. I always found it a little unnerving, but at the sight of the Scroll, lying on its silken bed like a pampered cat, stroked and worshipped and adored, my unease slipped away. It felt as if someone had wrapped their arms around me, gently kissed my temple, and whispered, _All will be well._

I could see why these men and women sacrificed their lives and their eyes and, to varying degrees, their sanity to the Scrolls.

It was, as I have said, a life I could have led. And I felt guilty that I was not able to give them my full attention.

Always, always, other business called me away. Outside of the cloistered winters I spent there, I was seldom at the monastery for longer than a couple of months at a time.

I had few outgoings at the monastery, but my outlay on bribes as part of the hunt for a copy of _Lost Histories of Tamriel_ was considerable. Calvus had thrown himself body and soul into the hunt – as intent on his quarry as any devotee of Hircine could ever be – and each time I visited him he seemed to have a new scent to chase down. Mostly we communicated through letters. My visits to him were few and always far too brief, the vast majority of my time eaten up with my stolen education at the Order, with the guild, and in Anvil, mooning around after Millona. I had no time to spare for the elderly man who had welcomed me into his house, taught me his trade, and become the closest thing I had to a father.

How bitterly I regret that now.

~o~O~o~

I was in Bruma when I received the news that Calvus had passed away.

His cousin had replied by care of the _Tap and Tack_ , in response to a letter I'd sent Calvus querying the contact he'd put me in touch with. (Not that it matters now, but on meeting the contact he'd struck me as a lying little shit who would sworn blind the moons were Dibella's lopsided tits in order to get his hands on a couple of clipped Septims.)

I had to read the cousin's letter three times before its meaning sank in, and even then I was smiling in angry disbelief because it seemed a poor sort of joke.

"You look like a man who's just watched someone piss in his mead," Olav, the proprietor said. "Ask me, that's usually the time to order another mead."

Barely hearing him, I focused on the words before me: _I regret to inform you that my cousin, Calvus Varo, passed away on the 13th of Second Seed. Should you wish to attend his funeral, it will be held on the 29th of Second Seed at the Great Chapel of Julianos._

No mention of a wake.

I snapped my head up. "What's the date today?"

"Errr..." Olav scratched his neck and squinted up at the ceiling as if he kept his calender there. "The... 26th, I think? Middas, ain't it?"

"Is it shite, you daft old sot," Ongar called from the corner. "It's Fredas. And it's the 28th."

"Fuck!" I wheeled around and slammed through the door, not bothering to close it behind me. I wasn't thinking, wasn't mourning, not yet. I was intent only on sprinting through the city. It was a raw mild summer in the Jerralls, the ground slushy beneath my boots, and I took the gritted steps two at a time and ran to the Mages' Guild.

In the foyer I waited, jiggling in impatience, for the two mages therein to finish their conversation. Each time I tried to interject I was shushed roundly and fiercely, as if I was interrupting a matter of deep importance.

I unfolded the letter, damp and crumpled from my sweating palm, and read it again, the blood rushing in my ears, as if I'd read it wrong the last three times. I still wasn't convinced it wasn't an elaborate and cruel joke. Calvus had seemed fine the last time I saw him, three... no, five months ago... A little frail, perhaps, but he always had been thin, and he'd looked well enough, excited about drawing close to his quarry. We'd eaten – no wait, _I_ had eaten a bowl of rich beef stew. Calvus had taken a few bites and then pushed the bowl aside, claiming he had little appetite these days. And in the night I could distinctly remember rolling over and punching the pillow, irritated at having been woken from a dream about Millona by his wretched cough.

I hadn't noticed; I hadn't even _thought_ , too caught up in my own selfish problems–

"So I said to him, sir, I said, _sir_ , I'll have you know I've seen bigger little chaps on some of the stunted scamps I've summoned, and if you don't put it away _right now_ and apologise, I shall summon a dremora, and I'll expect you'll be more concerned with the size of its sword than its–"

"Excuse me..."

"Do you _mind_?" the mage snapped. "Can't you see we're busy? So, then he said to me, and gods, I was fuming, I don't mind telling you, he said–"

I slammed my fist into the door, loud enough to make them both flinch. Startled eyes turned my way, and the prickle of rising magic bit at the top of my spine. "This is important," I said, through gritted teeth. "I'm afraid it's a matter of some urgency."

The mage who had been speaking sighed, and pushed herself up. "Oh, very _well._ Since it's clear we're not going to have any peace..." She regarded me with glacial eyes. "What can I help you with, sir?"

I brandished the letter at her. "I need to stop a funeral."

~o~O~o~

It shouldn't have taken me by surprise. He'd made it to the age of eighty-one in the end. A decent run for any man, particularly a man who'd led as interesting a life as Calvus had. It shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but of course it did. Because after everything he'd done for me, the master to my apprentice, that sad, gentle-eyed, lonely man who'd deserved a far better life than the one he'd been given, and I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye to him in person.

There was no outrage from the cousin about the rescheduling and rearrangement of the funeral. He was only a little taken aback at first, a little irritated at my presumption, but that had quickly melted away when I made it clear I intended to pay for the cost of the rearranged funeral, plumed horses and slap-up feast and all, as well as the far more salubrious plot well away from the chapel privies. That offer, combined with a hefty bribe to the primate of the chapel and a quiet undercurrent of menace to the letters I sent, was enough to have him cancel his plans and keep the body in the undercroft for a little while longer.

I swallowed down my rage and made the necessary arrangements. He'd invited no one else, only a few business associates, and none of Calvus's few genuine friends.

He hadn't even bothered to tell Min.

The funeral was held on a Loredas, a quiet drizzling day in early Midyear. Very few mourners attended. A few elderly bookish types turned up, but they seemed impatient, eager to be away to enjoy the promised food at the inn. Most of the rest were guild. It was a motley, disreputable gathering, and the cousin spent most of the service fidgeting, and he was one of the first to leave.

After the other mourners had broken off, drifting away in dribs and drabs, the single figure of an Altmer remained behind, sitting cross-legged by the grave, shivering despite the cloak pulled tight around his shoulders.

I glanced around at the deserted streets, then drew on the cowl and slipped into the world of shadow. A muted hum of life surrounded Min's slight figure. I approached slowly, and he lifted his head, but didn't look around.

"Did you bring it?" he asked, his voice hollow.

"Of course." I drew the bottle of brandy from my cloak. The 289 batch of Cyrodilic brandy. The good stuff. The _really_ good stuff. The bottle was so old it was the old-fashioned kind, screaming age and quality and oh-dear-gods-you-want-to-drink-me. The 289 batch was a rare luxury even for me, a once-yearly treat, and each year I promised myself I'd savour it and make it last, only for it to be gone in a day or two. Blink and you'll find yourself pissing it away.

"Is it stolen?"

"Does it matter?"

"Not really." He gave a twitch of his shoulder, and I thought I hadn't seen him this defeated since Anvil. Since that night we'd fought, when he'd sworn blind he didn't only fuck women if they were Altmers. Funny, since I hadn't seen him with a human woman since.

"Well, it's not stolen," I said. "For what it's worth."

He uncorked it and took a sniff.

"I brought glasses too," I said.

He glanced up at me, frowning. "What the fuck for?" And before I could answer, he upended the bottle. Three hundred Septims worth of the finest Cyrodilic brandy poured out onto the damp soil, soaking into the ground. My mouth went dry.

It took a long time for the bottle to empty, the only sound the whisper of the rain and the glugging from the bottle. The smell of honeyed brandy rose with the rain.

As Min poured, I sat cross-legged, and began to push my store of oxidised pennies into the damp soil. Each one was a memory. Each one a fragile treasure, a gift wrapped in love and regret: the first time I met him in the market, the book he'd pressed with shy uncertain pride into my dubious grip; his body, already fragile with age, shaking in my arms as all his possessions burned; the way his face lit up when he recognised me in Skingrad, a man grown. Every lesson he had taught me. Every word, kind or sharp, amused or exasperated. How he had drilled into me the importance of taking care of my books, and how I had failed him at every turn.

I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye.

There were more memories than coins, and when I'd exhausted the small collection I'd amassed over the years, I rolled the dirt between my fingers, and watched Min shake the bottle to dislodge the last couple of drops. My fingers smelled of damp earth and brandy.

"I thought we were going to drink to his health," I said quietly.

"I've drunk enough." Min pushed himself to his feet. "Let Calvus have it. Gods know he deserved more joy in his life."

"We could go to the inn?" I suggested, and winced at the a sharp urgent need in my voice. As if I could go into any inn other than the Rat in the mantle of the Gray Fox, and the moment I took off the cowl I'd be a stranger again.

Min took no notice. He wavered on his feet a little, enough to make me think he'd been telling the truth about having drunk enough. I think he'd almost forgotten I was there. He drew something out of his pocket, a delicate little piece of jewellery, which he clasped for a moment, his gaze turned up towards the overcast sky. It was an odd piece of jewellery for a man to have in his possession: a golden broach, in the shape of a butterfly.

I'd intended to slip away, to give him a few moments alone, but the shock of seeing it made me stop in my tracks and speak without thinking.

"Where did you get that?"

He glanced at me, his eyes distant, as if he'd forgotten I was there. Only for a moment or two and then his confusion cleared and his gaze hardened as if he thought I meant to claim it. "It was a gift."

I broke the gaze, looked away. Remembering so clearly the moment when I'd slipped the pin into Calvus's pocket, and patted myself on the back for having outwitted him. How clever I'd thought I was.

Min threw the pin down onto the grave, and kicked the soil over it. "All I can give him now," he murmured, and his expression twisted in sudden bitter rage. "And it's not fucking _enough_."

~o~O~o~

Back and forth, I marked out the days, months, years, in my journeys across Cyrodiil. From the Jerralls, to the Imperial City, to Anvil, and back again. I took in a myriad of other jobs in other cities along the way, some big, some small, all of them lucrative, and none of them enough. The ache in my back was ever-present. I rode so far and so often, that some nights when I stopped at an inn to rest it was all I could do to drag myself off the horse and collapse into bed, barely stopping to undress or eat.

And still I kept going, because to stop for too long would be to start thinking, and I could not risk that. Better to ignore the ache in my bones, or how the old stab wound at my side pained me. The scar tissue seemed to have rooted itself deep inside, pinching at a muscle with each step. I developed a painful hitch in my stride, a stab of pain at my hip joint each time I took a step, and I was forced to acknowledge the realisation that I was getting old. I wasn't yet forty, but I felt like a man a score of years older. An image tormented me: of finally breaking the curse and returning to Millona a decrepit old man. I was already sailing a little too close to decrepit some days, when it felt like the ache had settled into every muscle in my body. The gods knew I wasn't getting any younger.

At least the physical ache could be dealt with.

~o~O~o~

Swims-Under-Moonlight's hands were cooler than human hands, but in the sweltering warmth of the tiled room her touch was all the more pleasant for it. She knew what she was doing, and all I had to do was close my eyes, rest my cheek on the slab, and let her melt away every knotted muscle, every twinging joint. There was magic of a kind in her hands, I'm certain of it. I could feel the faintest golden shiver somewhere at the back of my skull, so faint I wasn't sure she was even aware of it herself.

For a few days at least I would be completely pain-free, and the effects would linger for a week or two longer. It was never quite long enough, but it was a blessing to be pain free just for a little while.

It wasn't the only reason why I came to her, although I am ashamed to admit it. There were times when the need to be touched by a living person, and a woman at that, became too strong to be ignored. I lay against the tiles, an urgent gathering need in the pit of my stomach, and my trapped cock so hard it almost hurt. A woman was touching me, and with the temporary suspension of pain, I could feel, for an all too brief period of time, what it was like to be normal. An illusion, of course: I could never be normal, but in the moment it was possible to pretend that it might be enough.

Besides I was distracted. It was hard to concentrate on anything but that hard, hungry ache, and the filthy, sensual images that flickered through my thoughts. When she told me to roll over, I obeyed without hesitation. I stared up at the intricate dirty little mosaics on the ceiling that someone had put far too much thought and effort and thought into, while the two of us pretended to ignore my straining erection.

And this, then, was the true reason why I come here, and why I made sure I only ever came to Swims-Under-Moonlight. It was partly because she was damn good at this, but mainly because she was Argonian. Had she been human or an elf, I don't think I would have been able to stop myself from succumbing to that hard aching hunger and betraying my wife still further than I had already. Twisting that knife of shame just a little bit deeper.

When she was done I eased myself off the slab, gingerly, because my erection still hadn't subsided. Swims-Under-Moonlight shot me a questioning glance, with an enquiring little prickle of her spines, I shook my head, and that was that – our transaction completed. I rolled my shoulders, closing my eyes at the bliss of being able to move without the ever-present ache in my joints.

And then, far off in the building, I heard a crash, accompanied by a faint noise, that might have been nothing but the mew of a cat. My nerves prickled, and I rose to my feet. I tugged a shirt on over my head, and pulled on the cowl. Swims-Under-Moonlight had turned as well, and I held up my hand, gesturing to her to stay where she was. She had a dagger, and with the cowl on I could feel her seething rage. It had never occurred to me to be afraid of her before.

"Back inside. Lock the door," I told her and moved out into the corridor without stopping to see whether she bothered to obey me.

Ahead I felt the sense of someone ahead, no anger or fear, only a cold hollow emptiness that made my throat close up with revulsion. In fact it was two people, their forces almost indistinguishable.

"He's here," a voice murmured. "We'll find him, don't you worry about–"

The voice broke off as I rounded the corner, driven by rage. A startled expression flared on both their faces, before the first man brought up his twin daggers. A pointless effort, since I'd already driven my sword into his guts and wrenched it up so high and with such force the blade nicked his ribs.

He coughed blood as I jerked the blade free, and swung around.

The second assassin backed away down the corridor. Wild madness gleamed in his eyes. Through the seething mass of his lifeforce, he grinned at me as if he had a secret.

He thought himself a mage. Certainly he had magicka enough to cast an invisibility spell. A handy trick for an assassin to keep up his sleeve.

Unfortunately for him, I could still see exactly where he was, thanks to the life detection enchantment on the cowl.

He was a mockery of a man, an empty shell with a hollow centre, a thing that walked and talked and looked like a person, but with something missing inside.

It takes a certain type of man to join the Brotherhood. There are some like that in the Thieves' Guild too, reckless bastards to a man, who can talk the talk and want the glory of the big jobs, but aren't always willing to put in the work necessary to practise and prepare. They are, however, willing to sacrifice their partners to save their own skins if the situation gets hairy. I've known men like that. I've worked with men like that. They can be useful, but they're also dangerous.

This man was not dangerous. He was just a fool who thought himself hidden. Who thought I couldn't see him as he readied his bow, plucked an arrow from the quiver slung at his side and dipped the tip in the vial of poison. He was fighting the urge to snigger – I could feel that urge battering against my mind as I walked closer, pretending I thought he'd fled. And he let me, the bloody fool. He even watched me with his arrow nocked, trying not to laugh, as if this mummery of mine was the funniest thing he'd seen. Holding off killing me, because he wanted to savour this moment.

He would have died anyway, but that's not really the point. And admittedly I might have stretched the moment out a little longer than necessary too, just to drive home what a total and utter fuckwit he was, and how he didn't actually have a clue what he was dealing with. Perhaps I should have let him take his shot, to see that moment of triumph on his face break apart like shattered ice. To see the moment he realised the Gray Fox was far harder to kill than he'd realised.

But bugger that: I had no wish to be poisoned again. This would have to do.

I swung around, and knocked the arrow aside. He gave a started cry, taken by surprise, and although I couldn't see his face, I sensed his eyes flare open in shock.

I drove the sword up, and twisted, wrenched it free.

And then he was crumpling, clutching his stomach. He lost his grip on the threads of the spell. His eyes seemed to shine wetly, filling with tears.

"You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?" I asked him, and his head twisted towards me, the whites of his eyes showing.

"What are you?"

"An excellent question. I often ponder it myself."

I cut his throat, and turned at the sound of shouting from deeper in the labyrinth of tiled rooms. It sounded like Armande's voice.

I moved on, leaving the two black-clad corpses behind me, and took a sharp turn through a steam room. The doors had been left open and the steam was seeping out. The lingering scent of mint clung to the air, and condensation pooled on the floor. A dark smear had been left on the glistening mother-of-pearl tiles; it looked black in the dim crystalline light, but I knew it for blood.

In the tepidarium where Sam held court, a third black-clad assassin rose to his feet, leaving a corpse on the floor – not Sam or Armande, I noticed with relief, but one of the enforcers, a dark gash in his throat. The assassin was a skinny little thing, but he came at me fast, slashing ugly little daggers, tipped with poison.

He relied more on guile and speed and the fear of his victims than any real skill. The poison I guessed would be a fast-acting one, which either killed quickly or incapacitated its victims. I twisted my torso to the side, and gave him a lazy backhanded slap that sent him reeling. He fell against the stepped sides of the pool, and before he could recover I kicked him in the guts. The impact sent a jarring stab of pain through the bones of my bare foot. It was enough to wind him.

I gripped his hair and hauled him to the edge of the pool. The daggers, short jagged little things, clattered to the floor. I smashed his face into the tiles, once, twice, then held him under the surface of the shallow water. He kicked and struggled, left a smear of blood and snot on the tiles, and finally went still.

Behind me a presence. Not threatening, not dangerous. The sound of rapid breathing. I lifted my gaze from the smear on the tiles, to see Claudine staring at me, her wide terrified eyes on mine.

~o~O~o~

There were six of them. All in the black enchanted armour of the Dark Brotherhood. They'd come up through the flooded tunnels and taken us by surprise. It was, in effect, a declaration of war.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that they'd come after me and Sam. They hadn't managed to kill either one of us, although Sam had been stabbed again and was spitting bloodied feathers about it, but they'd killed nine others, including two of the enforcers, and a couple of the bath house attendants.

And Miaran.

In the saltwater pool the water was stained pink. Her matted hair spilled over the edge of the pool like a waterfall. The sight of her corpse was like a punch to my gut, and worse was Armande's expression as he knelt beside her, gripping her hand tightly as if he could bring her back to life if he only clung on hard enough. I'd never seen him look so broken. For one of the first times, I almost felt grateful for the cowl. At least it covered my face.

I turned my back, and knelt by the assassin sprawled at my feet. He was a Breton of middling age, sleek in black armour. Not dead, but unconscious, and I stared for a moment at his face, fixing it in my mind, wondering by what process a man became a monster.

"They got in through the submerged passage," Min was saying behind me. "Took us by surprise."

At this I lifted my head and looked at him. "How? The lock is meant to be unpickable. Even Sam couldn't pick it."

Min blanched the colour of an old bruise. He closed his eyes.

" _Minelcar_."

He flinched and forced himself to look at me. "Someone let them in. Betrayed us."

I had thought myself angry before, but I'd known nothing like this. Rage flooded me, a cold unstoppable fury like nothing I'd ever felt before. My body stilled, tense and taut, pent-up fury vibrating in every bunched muscle. They were all watching me now, not just Minelcar and Claudine but even Armande, lifting his gaze from the body of his dead lover. Their fingers were still interlinked.

I drew back my lips from gritted teeth. " _Who?_ "


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N: Thanks to Tafferling for betaing.**

 **Please note this chapter contains some references to rape and scenes of torture. If you're enjoying this story, please take a moment or two to leave me a message. Constructive criticism is welcome too.**

 **Thanks for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty-Two**

" _You sleep rather soundly for a murderer."_

– Lucien Lachance

He ran, the stupid little sod, but not far enough.

Min told me about it afterwards, and his hands trembled as he spoke, but his eyes were cold.

No one had answered when the enforcers hammered on the door of the shack, so they'd smashed it in. The girl had flown at them, received a back-hand slap for her troubles, and after that she'd settled for screaming obscenities while they searched for their quarry. He'd begged for mercy, pleaded with them as they dragged him out from under the bed. He hadn't meant to, hadn't known what would happen.

The bloody fool.

The Waterfront was strangely silent when they brought him to me in the Garden. After the intense heat of the day, people should have been enjoying the cooler air of the evening, sprawled drinking at the edge of the Rumare, or passing skooma pipes back and forth on the porch while their kids played knucklebones and watched for the guard. Now there was no one. Everyone had shut themselves in their homes, with barely a candle to light the darkness. People were hiding. Word had got around.

They marched him slowly through the quieted alleys, and inside the shacks faces quietly looked away. Nothing to worry about, folks: just the bloody slaughter of the Thieves' Guild imploding. Let them hack each other down; that's what criminals do, after all.

Outside the Garden, in the corona of light cast by the torches, Nico faltered.

I felt a strange sensation, like I'd stepped sideways out of time and circled back to a time when another frightened boy had been dragged through the streets of the Waterfront to face his punishment. Only I'd got away with it.

I closed my eyes. As if this half-life I led was me getting away with _anything_.

Claudine huddled against Min, his arm around her shoulders. Sam leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, his face expressionless, and Armande had his head down, wearing the same hard flat expression of anger he'd had since he'd wrapped Miaran in the shroud. There was something distant about him, as if his body was here but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

Nico's girl – Jaya – screamed. The enforcers were trying to pull her away and she was fighting them, all nails and teeth and elbows. "I won't let you! I won't let you hurt him."

Then she gave a high, wordless cry of pain as one of the enforcer's fists closed on her upper arm and yanked her roughly back. She cowered and bared her teeth up at him, looking like a spitting alley-cat.

"Let her be!" I raised my voice and shoved myself away from the wall. "If she wants to stay with him then let her."

The enforcer glanced at me then jerked his head towards the gate. "Both of you. Inside." His mouth curled in disgust. He hadn't been in the bath house and we'd been cagey about the details, but that alone was enough to tell him it was bad. Wouldn't be long before the details came trickling out.

They entered the Garden, huddled together, terror rolling off them in waves. Nico's lifeforce pulsed, bright with fear and dread and guilt, strong enough to make me sick. I turned my head to the side and spat out a mouthful of saliva. Neither of them had seen me yet. They were both staring at Sam, who looked like he wished he was anywhere but here.

The enforcers, a Nord and an Argonian, followed them in.

Of the two of them, she had more guts, even with her lip split and swollen, and her eye already starting to swell. She had the look of a street-kid about her, and the toll paid for that sort of life always was higher for girls. From what I knew about her, she'd grown up somewhere that wasn't as kind as the Imperial City.

"He didn't do anything," she told Sam. "This in't right, what you're doing. It in't fair. I'm not going to let you."

I stepped out of the shadows and they both flinched back at the sight of me.

I reached out, and gently brushed her lip. "Who hit her?"

"It were me," the Nord said. "But she was–"

I swung around and punched him hard enough to send him sprawling. He rolled up, touched his fingers to his broken nose, and glared at me. "No one was to be harmed," I snapped. "I made that very fucking clear. So either you weren't listening, you're a fucking moron, or you like slapping around girls not even half your size. _Get up_."

Sam held out his hand and hauled the Nord to his feet. He clapped his back and muttered something that sounded like, _Your own bloody fault_. The Nord hawked up phlegm and spat it out, glowering at nothing in particular. I turned my back on them.

"So, now that business is taken care of... Did Nico tell you what he did, Jaya? The reason why this ugly pair of bastards came seeking him out?"

She nodded, eyes wide in her eagerness to explain, to make things right. "But you don't understand. He made a mistake. He was lied to. He didn't know what they were going to do."

I glanced at Nico. "That right?"

He was crying, the little shit. Or he had been. The tears had dried on his cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt, and every now and then he'd take a glance at me, cowled and expressionless, a hulking figure before him, and he'd start to shake.

"She's right. I didn't know." His voice was high with fear, his bony shoulders trembling. "I thought they was just gonna rob you. I didn't..." And he was crying again, chest hitching with every sobs. "Please. Please, I didn't know–"

A headache drummed behind my left temple. I thought how badly, how desperately, I needed a drink. Or better yet, to be in Anvil. To wake up and find the last five years had been a dream, and I was still safe in bed with Millona slumbering beside me. To bury my face in her hair, and to feel her stir and murmur my name when I pulled her close.

"Shut up."

His babbling fell silent. He blinked rapidly, staring at me for a moment. Then he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Look at me, Nico," I said, softly.

His jaw flexed, and he sucked a breath in sharply. He seemed to have to force himself to do it, and his gaze rested on the daedric lettering of the cowl rather than meeting my gaze. Jaya glared at me, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She looked like she was thinking of saying something, but kept her mouth shut.

"Tell me what really happened," I suggested. "You let them in. Why?"

"It was... it was Varian." He winced at the sharp look I gave him, and dropped his gaze. This time I let him. "He said he was sorry for everything. Said he was desperate and needed some money so he could... so he could start again. He said he'd heard you'd made a big score, and weren't going to share with the rest of the guild."

"And you believed him."

"He promised no one would get hurt, not if they didn't put up a fight!" And now he flushed, and blurted out with angry heat, "He was always all right to me. You lot laughed at me. He never did. Not once."

 _Oh gods. Oh gods-fucking-damn_. Jaya had gone pale, her eyes wide. I guessed the story she'd heard had been slightly different, and I wondered how he'd spun it. Maybe he'd even believed it, whatever lies he'd told her.

Nico sniffed, brought his gaze up to mine. "How... how many are..."

"Nine."

He paled. Pressed a trembling hand over his mouth. And then he dropped it and opened his mouth to speak. No sound emerged. Jaya looked numb.

I straightened up and turned my back on him, gave a nod to the enforcers. They closed in, shepherding Nico and Jaya back.

"Please!" the boy called out, then gave a broken cry of pain. I didn't look around.

Claudine spoke, her voice numb. "I believe him."

So did I. He was just stupid enough, just naïve enough, to fall for it. My fault: I should have known. I should have thought. I leaned on the marble pedestal of a statue with its face shrouded with ivy, and pushed a hand up beneath the cowl to rub at my tired eyes.

"Does it matter why he did it?" Min asked. His voice was cold and tight with rage. "He still did it. We lost good people because of that stupid little shit. No one deserves banishment more than him."

Claudine shook her head wearily. "It's a death sentence. After this... You might as well paint a target on his back and announce a bounty. He'd be lucky to survive the day."

" _Good._ "

"You can't mean that. He didn't know what he was doing." She ducked her head, looking around Min, again, not to me, but to the doyen. "Sam, please don't do this."

He was silent for a few brooding moments. "It should be Armande's decision," Sam said finally. "He lost more than any of us. Let him make the choice."

Armande lifted his head, and his hard look of anger had taken on a startled cast. He glanced across the garden towards Nico, who was talking urgently to Jaya. Conflicted emotions shifted across Armande's face.

"If you banish him, you'll be killing him," Claudine said. "You might as well murder him yourself. And you're not a murderer, Armande. You're not."

Min twisted away from her, his eyes flooding with rage, his hand closing around her wrist. "Why are you sticking up for him? After what he did–"

"He doesn't deserve to die for it! And here I was, thinking we're not a bunch of fucking killers. I _like_ Nico. So did you, Armande."

Not a trace of anger was left in Armande's face now, only a raw expression that skirted a little too close to despair. Min's grip tightened around Claudine's wrist, and he leaned close to hiss something at her. She wrenched away, and started towards Armande. "We don't need to banish him. Just expel him from the guild. That's bad enough."

Armande's expression hardened, his shoulders tensing, drawing up. And I knew there was only one way this was going to go. He'd banish Nico, and Claudine was right: the boy wouldn't last the night. He'd be lucky to last an _hour_. Someone would track him down, and maybe he'd get lucky and they'd kill him quick. More likely they'd make it last. Either way, Armande would have the boy's death on his conscience. He would damn himself.

I, on the other hand, was already damned.

"It's not Armande's decision," I said, shoving myself away from the statue. "It's _mine_."

From the startled looks they turned towards me I think they'd forgotten I was there.

"Last time I checked I was still the guild-master here." My gaze swung towards Sam. Older than me by at least a decade, and still he flinched under the full force of the cowl's gaze.

"Course, sir. I didn't mean to presume–"

"It's my decision." I turned my gaze on Armande, and he caught it, held it when all the the others looked away. "And I say banishment."

Claudine gave a cry of protest, silenced when I turned the cowl on her. Her face paling, she dropped her gaze and stared at the ground. "You'll be killing him," she whispered.

"Yeah," I agreed. "That's the idea." And I thought about Miaran, clever, wicked, beautiful Miaran, who would never make the journey back to Morrowind while still alive. One problem solved anyway: at least she wouldn't have to figure out how to tell her parents she was going to marry a Redguard and risk them bursting into flames before their time.

Sam beckoned to the enforcers who brought Nico and Jaya forwards. Nico had stopped crying, but his lips were pressed together so tight they'd gone bloodless. A momentary spark of hope gleamed in his eyes, but that was doused when Sam spoke. "The decision's been made: banishment."

Nico sagged. I think all that kept him on his feet was his girl's arms around him. "You can't do this," she said.

"It's done, girl."

Nico began to cry again. Jaya stared at Sam, white-faced and frozen, then cringed away when I moved from the shadows.

"I want to make something clear," I told her, and her gaze fixed on me, fearful and filled with mistrust. "Go with Nico and you'll remain under my protection. You're only protecting the boy you love. No one deserves to die for that. But you will be permanently expelled from the guild. No one will trade with you, no one will do business with you, on pain of expulsion. If you go with the boy, there's no coming back. Not ever."

Her bitter eyes remained on me.

Nico lifted his head. "I'm not a boy."

"No. you're not," I agreed. "Not any more. You're a man now, and you need to answer for your mistakes. Same as the rest of us."

He wasn't taking it in, but she knew. She was sharper than Nico and always had been. She knew their time together would be measured in days rather than months or years. There was a guild presence in every city and town across Cyrodiil, and when word got out everyone would be looking for him.

Nico shifted, glancing up at her. "Jaya, no. Don't listen to him. He's lying."

Her arms tightened around him and she kissed his forehead fiercely. "I love you," she told him. "More than anything." And his eyes squeezed tight with relief. But I could see her face when he couldn't and she wasn't done. "Only the thing is, the guild's all I've got."

"No!"

"I can't do fuck all else but steal. What'll I do, become a whore?"

"It won't come to that," he begged. Although we all knew it probably would. Even he must have seen it, this selfish little shit who reminded me so strongly of myself it hurt. And that was only if she was lucky. She'd be guilty by association and forgiveness was a scant commodity these days.

Jaya was trying to disentangle herself, and he clung on tight, crying and begging her not to go. She broke free, and backed away, a skinny scrawny figure who'd missed one too many meals as a child. Like me. Like him. She hugged herself, and I thought about the two of them in the Rat, laughing and kissing and so very clearly in love. The two of them together, able to face almost anything so long as they were together.

Except for this. Except for me.

And then she was gone.

Nico swiped the back of his hand across his cheek and turned his gaze on me. Heartache had blunted his fear, giving rage a chance to shine through. "You bastard."

"True enough. I've never claimed otherwise."

"I _loved_ her."

I took a slow step towards him. His anger bled into mine until I could no longer tell which was which. I was fairly sure the sick nauseated sensation rolling in my gut was all mine. "If that was true," I said, my voice low, "then you wouldn't be so fucking selfish. What do you think'll happen to her if she's with you when the guild catches up?"

He blinked at me. "You said you'd protect her."

"Fucksake." I pushed my hands up under the cowl, and pressed my forefingers into the bridge of my nose. "You're wasting time, Nico. You've got two hours, so I suggest you start running."

"Where am I meant to go?" he burst out. The Nord enforcer was listening, his eyes dark. Nico glanced at him, and blanched. Without waiting for my answer, he took a few staggering steps away. Then he whirled and stumbled through the long grass and vanished into the darkened streets. The Nord fidgeted, staring after him, made a move as if to follow, but thought better of it.

 _Not my problem,_ I thought, closing my eyes. _Not any more._

My cheeks itched from the touch of the cowl, and I longed to jerk it off, to free myself from the prison of shadows. For once, I longed for anonymity, to be able to walk the streets without anyone so much as glancing my way.

Min laid his hand on my shoulder. Behind me, Claudine was crying quietly, her face a mask of misery. Min's face was colder than I'd ever seen him, his eyes hard and glassy. "It was the right thing to do."

I drew in a breath. "Speak to the other fences. Make sure they know she's to get a twenty-five percent discount in the cut they take from what she sells them. More if they can afford it and think they can get away with it..."

"She's not stupid," Min said. "She'll know, and probably take it as an insult."

Damn, he was right. "Call it fifteen then. Armande?"

He looked at me. I couldn't see the expression in his eyes past the reflection of the flames that flooded them. His features were set and still.

"Throw some easy jobs her way. Lucrative ones. Set some up especially if you have to. Keep her busy." The less free time she had on her hands, the less time she had to mourn.

He stared at me a moment or two, and I wasn't sure he'd taken in my words. Then he nodded, and dropped his gaze back down.

It was a strange thing the cowl, with strange whims and ways. It let me sense the emotions of others, sometimes to the point where they overwhelmed me, swamping the man I used to be in the fears and lusts and joys of others. But it also seemed to mute my own emotions, reducing them to little more than pallid shadows of what they might once have been.

I should have felt angry, at Nico for betraying us, or at myself for not having watched him more carefully. I was the one who'd brought him into the guild, who'd given him a place amongst us, even though he just wasn't any good. Or I should have been mourning the ones we'd lost – good people all.

Instead I just felt tired, burdened by a weight of exhaustion so heavy it seemed like to crush me. All I wanted was to escape from here, to find the most expensive tavern in the city and set about drinking it dry before I rode to Anvil in the morning. I needed Millona, needed to see her, to speak to her. I needed her to kiss my forehead and tell me how much she loved me, that no matter what I'd done, it could never change how she felt about me.

A dull sense of resentment throbbed through me, little more than a fading torch barely able to pierce a mist.

I couldn't do any of that. Couldn't even spare the time to rest. Because I was the Fox, and if I wasn't yet damned, I soon would be, because the bloody business of the night was not yet done.

~o~O~o~

The Dark Brotherhood assassin lay in darkness, stripped naked and hogtied on the tiled floor of the steam bath. His skin was red as a cooked lobster, but despite the limpness of his body, defiant fury still gleamed in his eyes as he craned his neck towards the doorway, towards the light and the sudden rush of cool air behind him.

At least it started out as defiance. It shifted to fear, just the briefest flash when he saw the hulking silhouette, the monstrous cowl. This man, who was a hired killer, who slaughtered in the name of Sithis, he was afraid of me.

And he was right to be.

"Cut his ties, give him some water, and bring him," I said, and turned my back.

They dragged his limp, sweating body out. Despite how long he'd spent in the sweltering heat of the steam room he had enough strength to fight them, to twist and wriggle and kick, to swear at them in his cracked voice, to promise them he'd bring the wrath of Sithis raining down on all their heads. That there was more butchery and bloodshed to come.

Well, he was right about that.

In Sam's tepidarium they threw him down on the tiled floor still stained with his colleague's blood. It seemed a fitting place. And as he wriggled, trying to right himself, I kicked him in the gut. I circled away, and Armande kicked his kidneys, knocking him down again. Then a boot to the face. The assassin gasped, and spat out blood and shards of teeth.

"I had..." He coughed, spat again. "...I had credited you with more imagination."

"Oh, we're just getting started, believe me. This is..." I felt a sudden clench of fury, cold and terrible, that made my chest tighten. "This is us just working off our excess energy."

"I'm not–" The assassin broke off as Armande, choking back a broken sob, began to kick him in earnest, driving blows into the assassin's kidneys, into his gut, his crotch. Stamping on every exposed part of his body.

I poured myself a brandy from the bloodstained decanter, tilted it to catch the light. Behind me, Armande was breathless, gasping for air through his sobs. He stopped to press his hands over his eyes, and the assassin, no longer defiant, just broken and bloody, tried to drag himself away, smearing his own blood with the blood left drying on the tiles. He got a yard or two, very nearly reached the door, until Armande strode towards him, and drew back his boot to stamp on the fucker's head.

Time to intervene. " _Enough_."

Armande shot me the scowl of a sullen angry boy. "I'm not done."

"We're not done," I corrected. "And you're absolutely right. We've got a long night ahead of us, and this..." I squatted down by the assassin. His broken fingers hooked like claws against the tiles. "This is just the first course."

The assassin glanced at me, a sharp dart of his one visible eye. His hair was lank and black, matted with blood. He laughed, a wrenching shudder of his body that made his hooked fingers flex with pain. "I'm not going to tell you anything." His voice was mocking, even though it was tight with pain, catching in his parched throat.

"We'll see." I nodded to Armande, and together we picked him up to throw him on the bench.

He _screamed._ A wrenching shuddering sound, which left him a shaking mess, white-faced and waxy and weeping like a child. Naked and shaking, he was much less terrifying than he must have been with his armour on. Skinny, almost scrawny, with his cock a shrivelled little worm between his pallid thighs.

But pathetic as he was, he was tough. He recovered slowly, every muscle taut and quivering. He steeled himself, taking control of his wrenching breaths with more self-control than I could have managed. He turned his head to the side and spat out foaming bloody saliva.

"I'm not... going to tell you anything," he said again. His gaze flicked to the cowl and to the sigils there, and fear flickered across his face again.

I stayed silent, let him wait. Let him think, while the agony spread its tendrils through his shaking body. My guess was he'd broken a couple of ribs, maybe had some internal injuries. He might already be dying.

Armande paced the room behind me like a mountain lion in a menagerie. I heard him swallow down the glass of brandy I'd poured, and helped himself to another. I didn't look up, only kept my gaze focused on the assassin, until he broke.

"What do you want to know?" he said. "Who hired us?"

He was sneering. But still, he'd been the one to break the silence. And with that I knew I had him. It might take a while, and would steal away the last of what remained of my heart and soul, but by the time I left this room, he would be broken and I would be the one to break him.

"You're a godsrotted idiot if you think I even know that information," he added. "If you think I care enough to know. A job's a job."

"I already know who hired you," I said, my voice soft. His gaze darted towards me, and his tongue darted out to lick his bloodless lips. "I want to know who _sent_ you."

His eyes widened. "You..." And then his body shook with stifled laughter, eyes squeezing shut at the pain. His broken fingers tightening, as if they longed to become fists, but such a thing was beyond them now. "Godsdamn," he whispered, staring at the ceiling, eyes bright with pain and amusement. "You're stupider than I realised. What are you going to do? Go after the Brotherhood itself?"

"Yes."

Armande shifted behind me. "Sir..."

I lifted my hand, stilled him. Didn't take my eyes off the cunt on the slab.

"'Tenet two,'" the cunt whispered, through gritted teeth. "'Never betray the Dark Brotherhood or its secrets. To do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis.'"

"Fuck Sithis. If I were you, I'd be more worried about _me_ since I'm right here."

"Oh, I see you. And I see through you. You're no killer. You're not a murderer. You're nothing but lies and bluster. I'm not afraid of you."

"Not yet."

I stood up and walked to the table where the selection of implements had been laid out. While I stared down at them, Armande caught hold of my arm.

"Are you going to kill him?"

I glanced over my shoulder, and closed my eyes, thought about Nico's skinny back disappearing into the darkened streets. "No. Not unless I have to. But we need to cut this off at the source. Otherwise they'll just keep on coming, and more people will die. My people. Now fuck off out of here. You can't be here for this."

"I'm staying. I'd follow you into the depths of Oblivion, sir."

I reached up and took off the cowl. "No, you fucking won't."

He stared at me. I waited for the flash of recognition that would never come, and after a moment or two, I pushed him towards the door. "Get out," I said, and this time he obeyed.

And I set to work.

I'm no torturer, and in truth I'd thought I wouldn't be able to sustain it, that I'd get to a certain point and find I couldn't bear it any longer, but it turned out the opposite is true.

With every step, the wearier you get, and the easier it becomes. You start to force the knives, letting them twist and bite deeper, because you're angry, you're tired, and you just want the whole ugly business to stop. And at first you start to marvel as just how many different types of fluid can be found in a living human body, and then you get bored. A numbness spreads through you, and the screams start to lose meaning, become nothing but noise: weeping sobbing, begging. The wet slap of meat on a butcher's counter. The sawing of the knife through tendons and gristle. The splinter of bones.

It turns out torturing a man is a little like going down on a woman you're not the slightest bit attracted to, and who just will not come no matter what you do. It's the same sort of tedium, the same sort of ache, only in your hands rather than your jaw, and the same slowly building resentment and determination to see the sorry business through.

Rather more blood though. And if you see the gleam of bone in a wet bloodied mess while you're performing cunnilingus then you're probably doing it wrong.

Trouble is you get careless after a while. You get lazy.

You let the knife cut a little too deep, and hit a vein or an artery or something. Hear the rasping of laughter even through his scream.

His one remaining eye rolled in the bloodied mess of his face. I turned away, and wiped my arms, red with blood up to my elbows, on a rag.

"You've killed me, you whoreson," he hissed, his one eye filled with pain and madness and hatred while his life's blood pumped out of his body. "I'm dying now and they'll come for you. They'll keep coming, until all of your people are dead."

I studied him a moment or too, then snatched up one of the alchemy bottles on the side. There was a pressure in my eyes, as if I was about to cry although my eyes were dry. My breathing was as ragged and uneven as the thing on the bench.

I unstoppered the bottle and moved wordlessly back towards him. His eyes widened, and what was left of his hands scrabbled at the bench, trying to drag himself away. I knelt beside him, and gripped his jaw, forcing his mouth open. I pushed the neck of the bottle past the shards of his remaining teeth, past his muffled obscenities, and upended it, pouring its contents down his throat.

He tried to twist his head and spit, but I clamped his jaw shut and worked the fingers of my other hand into a raw wound. A scream bubbled up through his throat, choking him. His body bucked, eyes bulged. I waited until he'd swallowed it all down.

And then, with my hand still over his mouth, I leaned closer and whispered like a lover in his ear. "The best healing potion money can buy. And there's more where that came from."

He listened, tears blurring his remaining eye.

His wounds were already starting to scab over, unsplinted broken bones setting together, deformed. I studied his hands, thinking that if he ever got out of this he'd have to have them rebroken so that they could heal properly.

I waited, poured myself a generous glass of brandy, and drank, waiting for his wounds to heal. Waiting until he was ready for me to start again.

There were more bottles waiting on the counter. Just three left now – they really were expensive – but I could always send a runner out to buy or steal more if I needed to.

I didn't need to. There was one remaining bottle on the counter when he finally broke. By this time, he was barely recognisable as something that had once been a person, but I had a name.

 _Lucien Lachance_.

I drank my brandy, and considered this, turning the name over in my mouth, testing it. It felt a little too lyrical to be a man's true name. Much like Corvus Umbranox, although at least half of that was real.

"How do I find him?"

"Y'can't." His voice was little more than a breath.

"Godsblood, do we have to go through all that rigmarole again, friend? I'm tired. My hands hurt. I have a bastard of a headache." And still I started to my feet. "Let's make it easy on ourselves, eh? Well, on me anyway. The quicklime perhaps?"

"Nnnn..." Something that might once have been a head twitched from side to side.

"Very well." I sat down on the chair I'd positioned on the bench and clapped my hands together. "So. Let's start again. How do I find him?"

"Don't... know. Swear. I don't... Please..."

I sighed, and he began to scream.

My head was pounding by the time I'd ascertained that he'd been telling the truth and he really didn't know where this Lachance could be found. But I had another name, someone who might know, and I knew where she could be found.

And the thing on the slab was another couple of stepping stones further away from being human. I considered him, then shrugged, and fed him the last of the potions. Expensive, but I figured I owed him that much. He struggled, weak as a kitten, the runt of the litter, and the eye fixed on me as I moved away, all red-shot sclera. He might not have been mad when he'd been dragged in here, but he sure as fuck was now.

"Kill... me."

I shook my head, wiping the blood from my hands with a rag already too slick with blood to be of any actual use. In the basin, the water was murky red. "You don't deserve death."

He shifted, trying in vain to lift himself up. I did him a kindness and moved closer so at least he could see me. "They'll come... for me. This, what you've done... it's nothing compared to..." A hitching sob. "Compared to what _they'll_ do to me."

"Huh. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut then."

He might have blinked if blinking wasn't a physical impossibility for him now. "Kill me. Let... Sithis judge me."

"No, you were right. I'm not a murderer." _Just a monster._ "And I hope you're right. I hope they do come for you. I bet they're a damn sight better at _this_ " – I gestured to the ruin of his body – "than I am. Almost wish I was there to watch after what you did to my people, my friends."

He was breathing hard, and as I spoke he flinched, his remaining eye flaring wide. I thought it was the afterpains of the healing process shooting through him, but then his expression changed, and his face – what was left of it – took on a sly cast. Like something had suddenly become clear.

"Your _wife_?" he said.

It was like I'd been doused with icy-water. He must have caught the flash of uncertainty in my eyes, because his grin widened, into a mocking sneer. _He's bluffing, you damned fool._ "I don't know what you're talking about."

I didn't like the look in his eye. There was something about it, something I hadn't seen in a long time and had yearned to see: recognition.

 _He knows,_ I thought, and that chill spread through me, taking root in my heart. _He knows who I am._

He studied me a moment or two longer, then gave a jerk of his head that I think was supposed to be a nod. "They'll come for me. And I'll scream, I'll suffer. But see... it's business for them. And before they kill me, they'll listen... to me, to what I have to say, and your wife? Your pretty little wife you deserted? She'll die screaming."

I drew in a breath. A chill trickled down my spine. "You're lying. You're bluffing. You don't..."

"What? Know who you are? Are you... really such a fool? Took me a while to... to figure it out, but the Night Mother finally... finally had mercy. Your petty little Daedric tricks don't work on me, _My Lord_. Not for long." He coughed, bared what was left of his teeth at me. "Interesting little trick with the healing potions. Maybe I'll... suggest they try that. Make it last. I'm owed some favours."

And that made it easy.

My hand closed tight around the handle of the dagger. I slid the blade home, through his ribs and into his heart, hushed him softly as he rattled out his final, gasping breath.

And if at any point during the course of this history, I have led you to believe that I am not a murderer, then I humbly beg your pardon, dear reader.

Sometimes I lie.

~o~O~o~

In the now silent tepidarium I sat for a long time, drinking my way through the bottle of brandy. It was Sam who interrupted me, stepping through the doorway reluctantly, his gaze sweeping over me and towards the mess I'd made. I fumbled for the cowl and drew it on, the eyeholes askew, the ache in my fingers so fierce I could barely get them to work. I wished I hadn't wasted the last healing potion like a fool.

"They found Nico," he said.

I gave up trying to twitch the cowl back into place with fingers that refused to close, and jerked my head instead. "Oh."

"Floating in the sewers. About an hour ago"

I rubbed my face beneath the cowl. "Longer than I thought it'd take. _Fuck_."

He grunted.

I lifted my head and looked up at him. He was staring at the thing on the bench. He only had ten years on me, but at that moment it might have been thirty. He looked as weary as an old man, like an incarcerated prisoner who'd just realised he'd never see freedom again.

"You going to tell me I did the right thing?" I asked.

"I think you did what you thought needed to be done." He jerked his fingers to the brandy and I slid it across to him. He took a swig straight from the bottle and slammed it done. "And I'm fucking relieved that I'm not the one who had to make that decision." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Is this ever going to end?"

"Yes. I'm ending it. And soon." I jerked my head towards the thing on the slab. I couldn't bring myself to look at it. "Have that disposed of, will you? Or if no one can bear to go near it, leave it. I'll deal with it myself."

 _It's just meat,_ I told myself. I thought of the butchers' slabs in Bravil, the stinking rot of the shambles. Reeking buckets of offal and shit in the gutters. I'd seen worse. At least this meat was fresh.

He shook his head. "We'll take care of it. I'll do it if I have to. We left the other ones near the prison with a note for Commander Phillida. Figured he might be able to use them in his one-man vendetta against the Brotherhood. Should we give him that one too?"

I glanced at the mess on the bench. "Can't see it doing much good now." I knocked back a shot of brandy. "No, don't bother. Roll it into the sewers. Let the rats have it."

He nodded and pushed himself up.

"Oh, and Sam?" I called out. He glanced back at me. "Once you're done with that, fuck off. Get the hell out of the bath-house, and don't you ever, don't you _dare_ come back."

"I don't understand."

"I mean that I'm expelling you from the guild. We're done with you." I stood up, my back twinging in protest. I wanted to keep sitting, wanted to slump down at the table and sleep for a week. "More accurately, _you_ are done with _us_. You're out and you're never coming back. You're retired."

Emotions warred on his face. Anger and confusion and resignation, and all through it, a desperate burning hope that made me want to look away. Instead I held his gaze and waited while he tried to figure out whether he wanted to punch me or kiss me in thanks. In the end he did neither, only turned on his heel and left without a word..

"Go find your Rochelle Aurilliard," I murmured, closing my eyes. "Make a life for yourself and be happy. The gods know one of us has to be."

~o~O~o~

The man in the bed woke up.

It wasn't the first time I've had cause to spy on a sleeping man, and it's unnerving the power it offers you. How helpless people are when they're sleeping. I'd learned some things about Lucien Lachance in the time I'd spent hunting for him. Enough to know the world would be far better off without him, and he'd made it easy for me.

The cold stone room stank of death and nightshade, with little more than a few contrivances of luxury, a fine woollen throw and the best sheets money could buy on the bed, but it didn't change the fact that the frame was rickety, the bed itself thin and stuffed only with straw. The floor was scattered with stale rushes, and the silence was broken by the distant groans of the dead.

He was about my age, but in far better condition, and he had the sort of fine-featured face women went wet over. I wondered how many had fancied themselves in love with him, never knowing that handsome face was as much a mask as my cowl, hiding the monster underneath.

I was concealed in the shadows, but he knew straight away that I was there. His eyes searched the room, probed the gloom until he found me, perched in my corner, as far from the main door of the chamber as I could manage. I could hear the dead beyond, scratching at the door, and a gut-wrench of atavistic fear roiled in my stomach like a storm-cloud. I couldn't help it, but when I was angry enough I could fight it – and gods was I angry now. Whenever my rage began to die out, I only had to think of all the people I'd lost on this man's order to stoke the flames of my rage and chase away my fear.

"My Lord Fox," he said. "This is indeed an honour,"

No point in hiding now. I hopped down from my perch and moved towards the bed. I expected him to reach for a weapon, but instead he lay there, his posture languid. One hand pillowed his head, revealing a tuft of dark hair at his armpit. He seemed utterly unconcerned and unafraid, although his eyes remained dark and watchful. Even with the cowl on, he was hard to get a read on. Hollow.

"Have you come here to kill me?" he asked, his voice politely curious,.

"Not exactly." I threw the dagger onto his lap. He glanced down at it, then regarded me, dark eyes glittering with curiosity. I tugged my shirt down to reveal my chest, baring my heart to him. "I came here to let you kill me."

His eyes widened. This, he hadn't been expecting. "Can you be killed?"

"I've no idea. But won't you have fun finding out." I gritted my teeth. "You wanted me dead, you bastard. You cunting butcher. I'm _here_. Leave my people out of this."

He favoured me with an indulgent smile, rather like the look a parent might offer a child who's confessed tearfully to a minor crime the parent doesn't give a damn about. It made me itch to punch him. "I see. How very noble. Offering your own life to save your people. Would you mind if I rose, My Lord? I find myself at somewhat of a disadvantage."

I jerked my hand in a dismissive gesture, and watched bitterly as he rose from the bed. Beneath the covers he was naked. He had a dancer's body, spare and powerful, with not an ounce of fat to be seen. He had no care for his nakedness, moving with grace, and without a trace of embarrassment. When he turned his back I saw the decades-old scars that criss-crossed his back, the marks of whippings very much like my own. He glanced around while he pulled on a black silk dressing gown, and caught me looking. A slight mocking smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

Only when he tied back his hair in a ponytail did I see the dagger. An ugly little thing, sharp as a needle, fashioned to be hidden in the palm of his hand and never seen until it was too late. He'd let me see it deliberately, I knew, and it was gone by the time he turned back towards me.

"May I offer you a drink, My Lord? I understand you're partial to brandy."

"Why do you call me that?"

He glanced at me, uncapping the bottle. "It's your rightful title, is it not?" My dagger he'd left on the bed, discarded. "After all, you are Count of Anvil, are you not, Lord Umbranox?"

 _Gods._ I hadn't been prepared for that. I hadn't heard my name spoken aloud by a mouth other than my own in almost six years. I hadn't been prepared for how much it would hurt. And this man, this dangerous man, who had murdered countless people for no better reason than profit and pleasure and the whims of his empty god, smiled gently at me as if he understood. As if he sympathised. As if he was capable of such a thing.

"It must be hard," he said softly. "The daedra can be cruel indeed. Still..." The black silk rustled as he came towards me. He smelled of darkness, of night-blooming flowers. "I can see how such a thing might be useful." He offered me the glass of brandy, his smile a little too bright and his eyes too dark. I took the glass from him, and he watched me, deliberately not drinking his own. But this trick had been played on me before, and by someone I'd been far more terrified of. Cold-hearted murderer or not, this fucker had _nothing_ on my late father-in-law.

I knocked it back in one, tensed as the warm honeyed heat hit the back of my throat. But I didn't think poison would kill me, not even something as deadly as jarrin root and by now I cared little. There was no poison, or at least not one that was immediately detectable: just the warmth of the brandy in my stomach, and my body's screaming need for another glass to sip and savour, and then the whole damn bottle. He raised his own glass to his lips, smiling that gentle smile again. So understanding, but it fit ill with his glittering eyes.

And I was done with this.

"Are you going to kill me or not?"

"Do you want me to kill you, My Lord?"

"Don't you dare call me that."

He shrugged. "Master Fox, then. May I enquire who told you where I might be found?"

"Doesn't seem like there's much point. I wouldn't bother looking for him, since he's probably getting arse-raped by Sithis in the void right now. Quite a few of your people are, as it happens. You hid yourself well."

"Not well enough, clearly."

I swallowed down my impatience. "Are you going to kill me or not?"

He paused, the expression in his eyes a mockery of human sympathy. "No, Master Fox, I believe I am not. Not today at least."

"This is about me, no one else. Your contract–"

"The contract has been fulfilled. Not to the fullest extent of its terms, of course, but–"

"Are you really that fuck-witted? I know how you people work and clearly I'm still walking around."

"It's a rare thing this. I wonder if you realise quite how lucky you are. Nocturnal's influence perhaps."

"If I ever meet that bitch, I'll be sure to thank her."

Abruptly, he turned away from me and was at the door before I realised his intention. He moved too quickly, and I was still aching and sore. Before I could move, he jerked the door open and the zombie was inside. A shambling bloody wreck of a thing, so broken it could only crawl.

"I'm glad to say that I am in the position to make you an offer, My Lord," Lachance said as it passed him. I barely heard him, pressed flat against the wall in primal terror. And Lucien was watching me, dark hunger and amusement in his eyes.

"Don't you recognise your own work? Rather lurid to my tastes but a work of art nonetheless."

"That's..." The nameless assassin I had tortured and then murdered. The first and not the last, but the one into which I had put all my heart. Somehow transported here and reanimated.

Lachance had known I was coming.

"Clearly you have a knack for this kind of work, and it seems we have some positions to fill," he said.

"You..." Despite my fear, I grinned. "Wait, let me get this straight, are you telling me you want me to join your group of cold-blooded killers for hire?" I gave a bark of humourless laughter. "You really are insane."

"You can lie to yourself about what you are, My Lord, but do not presume to lie to me." His voice hardened. "I speak with the voice of the Night Mother and my words are her will."

My rage was creeping back "I do beg your pardon, I hadn't realised. Have you considered putting on some sort of falsetto?"

I'd been right about him moving like a dancer. He was fast, all silk and grace. He gripped the dead thing's hair and jerked back its head, buried his hidden blade in its skull. It looked like he was caressing it. The two locked together for a moment, and then Lucien eased it down, gentle as a lover. His hand smoothed over the corpse's hair, but his eyes lingered on me. And then he was up again, circling around me with predatory grace. "It's often a mistake to mock things you do not understand, Lord Umbranox."

"Don't call me that. You don't have the right to use my name."

"Is that truly the reason? Or is it rather that it gives you too much pleasure to hear your name spoken after so long even on the lips as one such as I? A cold-blooded killer for hire. What was the other thing you called me, a 'cunting butcher'?" He cocked the bottle of brandy at me. "Another brandy, _My Lord_?"

I stared at him. He shrugged and poured me a glass anyway. I accepted it, thinking I might mash it into his smugly handsome murderous face. Instead I found myself drinking.

Lachance took a sip and considered me. "Tell me then, dear brother, what is the one thing you long for?"

"Nothing you could possibly offer me."

He waited, pale fingers wrapped around the stem of the brandy snifter.

I sighed. "Can you give me my life back? My friends, my family?" _My wife_?

"If I could, I would. I'm afraid such a thing is beyond my limited capabilities. I cannot give you your family back, My Lord."

"Well, then."

"But I can offer you another one." His soft words were beguiling. The worm wrapped tight around the hook. "Another family, one with bonds so tight they can never be disentangled. Brothers and sisters who would accept you as one of their own, who would love and cherish you for who you are–" He came close and pressed his hand over my heart. "–And not for the masks you wear, the lies you tell. May I?"

He gently removed the cowl, his thumb brushing over the coarse stitching, over the runes burned into the woollen fabric.

"Take it," I urged. "Put the damn thing on. You're welcome to it."

And for a long few moments I think he was tempted. Dark curiosity gleamed in his eyes, perhaps the very same light that my predecessor recognised in my own eyes. Then his eyes flicked to me, a smile tugging at his lips. "A tempting prospect, but I'm afraid I shall have to decline. Tell me, though, does your wife know who you are, or does she only know the lies? Or have you told so many lies that you're no longer certain where you begin and where they end? The latter I think. You have the look of a man who lost himself long ago."

"When I was a boy."

"I suspected as much. How old were you when you killed your first man? I'm not speaking of murder, necessarily, you understand, but the simple act of taking a life."

"Seventeen. Maybe–" A twist of a dark memory, lost forever. A black thing shrouded in darkness and despair. "Maybe even earlier. I don't remember."

"I could help you remember," he hold me softly, handing me back the cowl. "Every detail as clear as daylight. Or, if you so chose, I could help you forget. I could show you how to bury it under so much slaughter it would be lost forever. You'd learn to glory in it, to see beauty in the art of the knife. Part of you already does, I suspect, even if you seek to deny yourself such a simple pleasure."

"I doubt that. I've never been in the habit of denying myself simple pleasures."

He gave me a thin smile. "Think of it, My Lord. A family of your own again. A lover, perhaps. Your name spoken on the lips of a woman reaching her peak. Or a man, if you so prefer–"

"Why, Lucien, I didn't know you cared."

A humourless twist of his mouth. He took himself seriously, this handsome dangerous man. Despite the cool press of his hand on my chest, he had no real interest in me. He was an empty hollow thing, and in his eyes the howling void. No fucking wonder he'd turned to Sithis. "If that's your wish–"

"Lucien." I drew my face close to his, so close I could have kissed him. And I half think he thought I was going to. " _No_. Never. I'd rather dig my own eyes out with a rusty nail than join your little gang of monsters."

"Well..." He drew away. "If you're certain."

"I've never been more certain of anything in my life. I want only to know that my people are safe. That..." I hesitated, but he knew who I was there seemed little point in clinging to anonymity now. "That my wife is safe."

"Ah, the lovely Countess Umbranox. You can rest assured, My Lord. She is currently in no danger from the Brotherhood."

I exhaled with relief. He could have been lying, but I didn't think so. Monster or not, he didn't seem like the lying sort. If he planned on killing her, I suspected he would have taken great pleasure in telling me so. "You swear you'll leave her alone?"

"I'm afraid that isn't a promise I can make. Currently she's in no danger, but in the unlikely event of someone performing the Black Sacrament, well... A contract is a contract." He glanced at my scowl. "You don't like that answer, My Lord."

"Of course I fucking don't."

"It's the best I can offer you, I'm afraid. Your people are safe too. Again, for the moment."

I inclined my head, considering this. Then I nodded, and lifted my head.

"Very well. I suppose that will have to do for now. Listen to me, Lachance, and listen well. There's only one thing that keeps me going these days and that is the hope that I can break this curse and be reunited with my wife. The _only_ thing. Do you understand me?"

"Quite clearly."

"Capital. So tell me... You must have an inkling by now of the sort of man I am, yes? What do you think will happen if that one reason for living is taken away?"

He smiled, not the slightest bit intimidated. "I suspect you'll find another reason to go on living."

"Right. Three guesses what that reason will probably turn out to be."

He laughed, his eyes bright. "You'll set your heart on destroying the Dark Brotherhood. Well, I should warn you that you're not the first. Many have tried."

"Ah, but you're forgetting I've got a Daedric Lord on my side. I have a history, Lachance, of getting what I want and not always fully thinking through the consequences. If anything happens to Millona, and if I think there's even the slightest chance of it not being natural causes, I'll auction off my soul to the highest bidder. Any of them. I don't much care which. Nocturnal's probably got first dibs, but I suspect Molag Bal wouldn't mind getting his hands on me. We've sort of got a history, he and I, and I'd be quite content to spend an eternity in Coldharbour getting reamed in every single fucking orifice so long as it means I bring you and your precious little family and your cunt of a Night Mother down with me. Actually, scratch that, Lachance; I'd do it purely to fuck you over. Anything else is a bonus."

His smile had gone. "You can try."

"Don't test me. There are few things more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose."

"Certainly few more single-minded." He paused. "You're certain you won't accept my offer?"

"Not a chance in Oblivion."

"A pity, but I understand, dear brother."

"I'm not your damned _brother_."

He held up his hand to forestall me. I swallowed back my rage and rolled my lips inwards. "The offer stands, My Lord. Should you change your mind, I'm sure you'll find a way to let me know. You've certainly proven far more resourceful than we had anticipated. I understand and appreciate your warning, and to show you there are no hard feelings..." He drew a folded scrap of paper from the dresser. "Consider it a gift."

I unfolded it, and read the elegant writing inside with cold dread. "Is this a fucking joke?"

"No joke, I assure you. The name of the one who performed the Black Sacrament and his current location. He currently resides in an inn far to the east, near the border. Consider it a gift from one guild member to another. A peace offering, shall we say?"

I stared at him. "And what? You expect me to kill him? I told you, I'm not–"

"Not a murderer? Several of my brothers and sisters would disagree with you there, I suspect."

And if I tell you to shove your gift up your arse?"

"He dies in any case. If you choose to let him live, then I will take care of that minor detail." A smile flickered about his lips. "Something tells me he won't die at my hands. Still the decision is yours."

I crumpled the note in my hand, and threw it at him. He didn't even flinch. "I think I'll go with the shoving it up your arse option."

Laughter sparkled in his eyes. "As you wish. Perhaps it's better this way. You should know that out of respect for you I won't make his death quick or merciful."

"How generous you are."

It was a weapon, that scrap of paper, a dagger set in my hands. He'd known I was coming, all along, and perhaps he might even have wanted me to find him.

It filled me with despair, that I'd chased him halfway across Cyrodiil, when all the time he'd been waiting for me to find him, patiently watching while I worked my way through his people. Waiting for me to follow the crumbs and come to him.

I was a boy again when I left that fort. Not for long, but for long enough.

The iron taste of blood on my lips, cold metal in my hands, and the memory of hunger.

If I rode west, eventually I would reach Anvil where Millona would be waiting. I longed to see her. As if through her presence I could bathe and scrub the filth of the past few weeks from my skin. I needed to see her and to talk to her, even if she never heard me. At least I could lie to myself, tell myself she still heard me somewhere deep inside, that she was waiting for me to come home.

I'd thrown the scrap of paper in his face, but the contents remained in my mind. I couldn't have forgotten them if I'd tried. I closed my eyes and saw that elegant curving handwriting. Varian's name, of course; no surprises there. I'd known that all along.

If I rode west, Millona might be waiting for me.

I rode east.


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: Thanks to Tafferling for betaing. All always, all comments are appreciated.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty-Three**

" _Mee wurst troll evurr  
nobuddy pay brijj tole  
me nott sceary enuf  
mee gett drunc an kil sellf  
troll droun_"

– A Poorly Scrawled Note

It was a different man who returned to the Jerralls. Who rode north along the road that wound up and into the mountains, a speck of life dwarfed by vast snow-capped peaks.

This far north there was a bite to the air, a reminder of how close I was to Skyrim, to the frozen wasteland of draugr, tombs and barrows in which I'd spent so much of my childhood imagination. It made me wistful for a different life, one I'd dreamed of as a boy. Warrior, rather than thief. A simpler harsher life, although no doubt I'd have found a way to fuck it up somehow. I seemed to have a knack for that.

There was snow on the ground by the time I dismounted at a wayside inn. A stable boy stomped out reluctantly with the sullen glower of a lad who'd rather be anywhere but here. He led Phantom away into the stables.

I retreated into the inn, where a bard was singing songs I hadn't heard since my youth. Every other face seemed to be a Nord, and for a moment or two I wondered if I hadn't accidentally stumbled across the border and was no longer in Cyrodiil. Ignoring the glances shooting my way, I ordered a bottle of mead and a bowl of venison stew, and settled at the end of the bench by the roaring fire to listen to the bard.

I'd fully intended to get drunk out of my skull, to lose myself in the labyrinthine passageways of alcohol and memories of my boyhood, but no matter how firmly I set myself to the task, I couldn't. I was too drained and weary, the mead too sickly sweet. And when I switched to ale, I found it too dark, with a bitter aftertaste of treacle. So instead of the much-needed oblivion I yearned for, I slumped at the table, fishing shreds of meat out from between my teeth, unpleasantly sober and barely able to summon up the concentration to listen to the bard.

My numbed thoughts circled the here-and-now, as if the present was a campfire chasing back the lurking terrors of the recent past. The moment I allowed my mind to wander recent events came creeping back. Again and again my thoughts strayed: a slab of living meat in a tiled room; Lucien Lachance's gently mocking smile; Armande drawing back his boot to stamp on a murderer's head; a hunched back hurrying away through the darkened streets of the Waterfront.

Dwelling on it wouldn't help. Not now. Later, perhaps, when I was safe and warm. When I wasn't so close to complete collapse. Then I could let myself think about what had happened. What I'd done. Maybe.

For the moment my business had been dealt with. Finished with, once and for fucking all. Even the Brotherhood would think twice before tangling with me now that I'd shown them the potential consequences.

In the morning, I'd wake early, I'd reach the monastery by early afternoon tomorrow and then...

And _then_.

"Another, milord?"

"Mm?" My unsteady gaze focused on a pair of breasts (I know, I _know_ , but a man cannot help his instinct and this was all instinct). I forced it upwards to meet the gaze of the woman in a dress entirely unsuited for the bitterly cold weather. She looked plump and ripe and welcoming. The cold seemed to suit her. "Yes," I said, fighting to keep my eyes from shifting downwards again. "Please."

Loneliness tugged at me.

Stomach roiling, I struggled to finish up the last of the sticky black ale. It left a claggy sensation in my mouth. With the still half-full tankard dead on the table behind me, I heaved myself from the warmth of the inn and out into the chill night quiet. It was snowing again, and the air was still, the moons vast and silvery, fringed with the peaks of pine trees. The weight of snow muted all sound, save for the far-off scream of a fox, rendered crisp and clear. It made me flinch.

I crunched through the freshly fallen snow to the privy. Gentle fluffy snowflakes kissed my cheeks, nipped at the back of my neck. I closed my eyes as I pissed, weaving on my feet while the darkness crowded in behind me.

The pain helped to stop my mind from wandering. The spasms shooting up my back, the chafed skin on my inner thighs, the throbbing ache in my red-raw knuckles. Concentrate on that and all would be well.

Like a horse wearing blinkers, all I had to do was focus on the path ahead and trudge ever onwards.

Easy.

So why the fuck couldn't I do it?

The bitter cold reminded me of a half-forgotten dream, of that awful place where the air was choked with smoke and something terrible was coming for me. The snow swirled in against the back of my neck, feeling like flakes of ash.

 _Something's coming_.

Well, yeah, maybe there was something coming, and maybe it was just as terrifying as I had imagined, but now I could see there was a damned good chance that terrible something might be _me_.

By the time I'd finished and shaken off the last few drops, I was shivering. I wished I'd brought my cloak. My footprints led back to the inn. Moonlight glimmered on the glistening snow, lending everything an ethereal silvery glow. Snowflakes whirled down, and I blinked them from my eye lashes.

Through a line of stark spruce pines, I could see the rest of the community, the tiny logging hamlet the inn served. No lights burned in the windows of those dark buildings; they seemed empty and foreboding, with their roofs weighed down with snow and pine trees guarding them like sentinels. I felt watched, and a cold shiver crept up the nape of my neck.

My breath gusted out

Perhaps I should just ride north. Take the Pale Pass and try my luck in Skyrim. Not like I could make a worse hash of it than I had here.

It should have been a relief to escape back into the inn, where there was a fire and a convivial atmosphere and plenty of flowing booze. Instead it felt airless, the heat and smoke of the fire a crushing weight on my chest. The bard had begun a low rhythmic drum beat, which seemed to reverberate in the wooden walls. It felt like stepping into the heart of a giant.

The Nord woman cast me a smile, but if I'd ever been in the mood to flirt I wasn't any longer.

Feeling more drained and saddle-sore than I ever had before, I nodded my goodnights to no one who cared, and started towards my room. "If there's anything you need, sir," the woman said, "please let me know."

Temptation tugged at me. I was tired and lonely and afraid, and what I really needed, right at that moment, was the comfort of a warm, willing body beneath me. To be cradled between spread thighs. To have full breasts beneath my hands and lips against my mouth.

I slumped against the wall, and closed my eyes. "Perhaps..." My voice was slow and sluggish, dulled by exhaustion and what little alcohol I'd drunk. "Perhaps another time."

It isn't much, I know, and I don't claim for a moment that it's enough, but I went to bed alone, and fell into a restless drowsing slumber with the inn beating like a heart around me.

~o~O~o~

I left the inn early the next morning. A dull pulsing headache pressed against the inside of my skull. It seemed to careen around my head if I tilted it too far one way or the other, like badly stowed cargo on a ship. Eyes gritty with sleep, I felt like a man barely awake as I slumped through the common room of the inn. A couple of patrons were sprawled on the ground or on benches by the fire, having been too drunk to risk the freezing trudge back to their distant steadings the night before.

Clearly no one except me had any intentions of rousing so early, and the innkeep regarded me with sullen resentment. Breakfast was meagre – hard waxy cheese and stale bread dipped in goats' milk to soften it, washed down with ale. I ate little, and drank only slightly more, then took myself off outside for a piss, while the red-eyed, pinch-lipped innkeep glared at my back.

The sky was a flat murky gray, the sun's appearance over the horizon as reluctant and unwilling as the innkeeper. Its weak watery light barely pierced the clouds. The ground had frozen solid, and the music of my urine stream tinkled on the frozen pool of piss and excrement below like a delicate arrangement in bells: _The Piss and the Lark on a Fair Wintry Morning_. A gout of frosted breath accompanied this idle thought, along with a sharp pulse of pain in my skull to punish me.

 _You're not even funny_.

My stomach churned. That morning's ale was not sitting well in my guts.

I saddled Phantom myself and let the stable boy sleep on. Not out of any sense of generosity on my part. The unfair unearned hangover had put me in a foul mood, and I might have shaken him awake to do his fucking job, the job that I'd tipped him for very well the night before, if it hadn't meant spoiling the atmosphere in the stables. Here there was a sense of peace, the soft noises of the animals, the mingled scents of horse and sweat and hay.

I let Phantom smell me, blew my own breath into her nostrils as Millona had taught me long ago. And when I closed my eyes, were it not for the cold, I might have been back in Anvil, listening out for footsteps behind me.

Thank fuck there weren't. If there had been, no doubt it would have been the innkeeper creeping up to beat the shit out of me for turfing him out of bed.

"Nearly there," I whispered to Phantom. "We're nearly there. Not long now, eh, girl?" Phantom shifted, hooves clopping lightly on the stable floor. My forehead pressed against her neck, and I inhaled deeply of the scent of horse and of my wife.

Felt the touch of lips on the nape of my neck, arms reaching around me from behind, warm breath against my cheek. None of it real, of course, but it felt real at that moment, and it hurt all the more than the illusion broke apart like dragon-gelt.

When I straightened up, I'd left a wet smear of tears on Phantom's neck.

~o~O~o~

I followed the road west.

For a little while the weather was very fine, with the sun making a brief appearance. A gushing stream cascaded down the polished rocks, scattered crystals of clear water fracturing the sunlight. I dismounted to rinse the musty taste from my mouth and refill my skin with water. As Phantom drank, I gazed out at the view spread before me, the slopes dark with pine trees giving way to the greener lands of the south. At what seemed the very edge of the world stood the hazy shimmer of the White-Gold Tower, just visible if I squinted. And somewhere beyond there home awaited me.

I stretched, grimacing at the myriad of complaints from my muscles, and remounted. The clouds were already scudding across the sun, veiling its face from view.

I thought of my bed at the monastery, neatly made with bedding more luxurious than any I'd slept in as a count. I'd sleep for a week, I thought, or at least until well into tomorrow afternoon. One advantage of being the Fox: I could get away with behaviour the others couldn't. There was a chance Jirav might notice and helpfully prod me out of bed, grinning when I swore at him, but most likely I'd be left to sleep for as long as I liked, until I was finally ready to haul myself out of bed and face the other monks.

Along a narrow pass, where the road narrowed to little more than a scrabble track, bordered on either side by steep slopes and straggling bushes, Phantom baulked. I made a soothing sound, and stroked her neck, but my own heart was heavy with unease. Along the top of the slopes boulders were silhouetted against the sky.

 _Nothing there,_ I thought, but my heart had picked up its pace. Even sluggish and slow as I was, my old instincts hadn't been dulled completely.

I was expecting bandits. For the innkeep to have sent the stable boy on ahead to warm of my approach. A knife or an arrow between the ribs, in exchange for what little coin I had. My purse was decidedly light, but Phantom would fetch a fair bit, even without her identity papers, and those, as I well knew, were easy enough to forge.

My lips peeled back from my teeth. _Well, let them,_ I thought. _Let them try to rob me._ They'd be regretting it soon enough, the fools.

I dropped my head back, ready to howl a challenge at the silent hills. Only then the hills weren't quite so silent.

The troll bellowed. It was a hoarse inhuman sound, something between a cough and a bark, and deafeningly loud. It echoed off the rocks, turned my guts to ice-water and sent a flock of tiny rock-starlings, each no bigger than my little finger, bursting up from their nesting site in a wheeling skitter of wings.

One of the boulders moved. It unfolded, and kept unfolding, a massive bulk of muscle with long ape-like arms. It bellowed again, then thundered down the slope towards us, sending an avalanche of loose rocky scree raining down around us. Phantom wheeled away, terrified.

I fought to take back control, but every scrap of my tattered horsemanship deserted me. Phantom reared up in stark terror, and I was unseated. Saw, in the seconds as I was flung from the saddle, the troll rip my horse's throat open.

Blood gouted, a fountain of crimson against the smoky canvas of the sky.

A crunch as my skull hit a rock. Colour bleached from my vision. A white flare of pain, and the world bled at the edges. Somewhere my horse was screaming.

My fingers dug into virgin snow and quickly turned numb. Footsteps crunched closer. The snort of an animal nearby, a bullock or a stag. Hot moist air and a bestial stink enveloped me. As I struggled to right myself, the footsteps moved away again. They had the unnatural rhythm of something not human. My skull felt like it might have been cleaved in two.

Berries burst on the snow.

I squinted at them, imagining the taste of sharp little pops of bitter fruit on my tongue. As I watched, another spray of them burst open, splattering the snow with red.

 _Not berries. Blood._

"Oh," I whispered. "Fuck."

I rolled over and saw the troll, circling around Phantom's still-struggling body towards me. Its eyes gleamed like polished black stones, the third eye so deep-set in the crevices that grooved its skull it could hardly be seen. Its body was scarred and muscular, sparsely covered in coarse black fur. It moved fast. I barely blinked and it was on me, gripping my leg and hauling me back. It reeked, a sour musky aroma like milk on the turn.

The underside of my skull struck another rock with another blinding flash of pain. Blood streamed down my forehead into my eyes. I gave a choking sob, and kicked out at it, too blind to see. My boot connected with its chest, hard enough to make it bellow with fury.

Like a madman I laughed aloud, with terror, with triumph. It didn't last. The troll wrenched my leg around, snapping it as easily as I might snap a twig. The _crack_ of breaking bone echoed around the deep valley like a dried twig.

I was a shrivelled thing, my world reduced to the bounds of the searing pain in my chest, my leg, my head, to the stinking crushing weight atop me. Into this shrunken world came my grip around the dagger, the weight of the blade in my head. I drove it upwards, felt it wedge in bone.

Had I been a normal man, I would have been dead three times over by now.

I might have cracked my skull open on the rock when I tumbled from my horse. Or when the troll laid open my chest with a swipe of its claws. Or suffocated in the long while it took me to wriggle out from underneath the crushing weight of the troll's corpse, with my leg limp and useless.

Freed, I took gasping breaths, wheezing because the air was almost too cold to breathe.

"Someone," I whispered up at the sky, "is taking the absolute fucking piss."

And then I turned my head and saw Phantom, no longer struggling to get up, her blood soaking into the snow. The last of her breath steamed in the crisp cold air.

"Nonono! Oh gods, no." I hauled myself over to her, half-crawling, half-scrambling through the snow. I collapsed against her bulk. She was still breathing, just, with the slightest shuddering rise and fall of her chest. "No, sweetheart, no. Don't you go and die on me. Don't you fucking _dare_."

Her eyes were glazed. Near all her life had slipped away already, and still I pressed my hand against the wound as if I could knit the tattered edges of the wound back together. If I had even the slightest scrap of magicka, then perhaps I could have done. Instead I was useless.

I buried my face against her chest and mumbled, "I don't even like horses," into the rough velvet of her hide. Phantom was the one thing I still had left of my wife, aside from my wedding ring, and now the gods had seen fit to take her away from me too. I wept until the shuddering breaths stopped, until my horse lay still.

I must have fallen asleep or passed out pressed against the still-warm corpse, because when I opened my eyes it had started to snow again, and some of the heat had slipped from the horse's body. I shifted, forgetting my leg, and the wave of pain that crashed over me forced a scream from my raw throat.

I screamed again as I forced the bones back into position to stop them from healing badly, and and I must have passed out again, because by the time I came too my leg was already close to healing and darkness was gathering in folds around me. Even in the gloom I could see the bloodied smear of my handprint against the horse's dappled flank. The wound in my chest was scabbing over and I gritted my teeth through another sheer little moment of agony as I peeled the fabric of my tattered shirt free.

I spent the night asleep against the cooling body of my dead horse, my fourth tally on the death-count of the day, since by all rights I should have frozen to death. I would have welcomed it. From what I experienced, it wasn't an unpleasant way to die – it felt a little like slipping into a peaceful dreamless sleep.

When I woke the world was drowned in fog. Dull silvery light played around me, and I was so cold, I barely felt the chilled fingers of wet mist that clawed at me. I shook the snow from me, and levered myself up, cautiously testing my leg and cursing myself for not taking the trouble to splint it. I'd been lucky though: it had healed well enough to walk on although it wasn't completely straight, and never would be again unless I had it rebroken.

With my heart frosted over, as clear and glassy as a frozen lake, I began to walk, stumbling and half-dead, back to the Temple of the Ancestor Moths.

~o~O~o~

The stone of the chapel stood dark against the gleaming snow, white as Ayleid stonework. Fear gripped my heart tight. With the death of my horse it seemed as though every one of the fine tethers binding me to my past life had been severed. Without those ties to the man I'd once been, how could I ever find my way back?

 _Perhaps_ , a voice whispered, _it's for the best if you don't._

If I broke the curse now, the man that returned to Millona wouldn't be the man she married. She'd married a man and not a monster.

Or so I tried to tell myself, because how could it have been the Gray Fox who had done these things? He was the protector of beggars and peasants, scourge of the wealthy and powerful, the walking embodiment of honour amongst thieves. It wasn't the Gray Fox but me. There was something inside me, something I'd glimpsed clearly for the first time at my mother's side, in the eyes of a boy in a painting. What could I have been if I hadn't been stolen away? What might I have done?

What _had_ I done, buried in the silty murk of my memories?

I'd always thought myself a good man. A decent enough man, albeit one with a flexible moral code. But that had always been through necessity. I'd had no choice. I might be thoughtless at times, and too focused on my own selfish pleasures, and there was no doubt I could be a bastard when I had to be. But I wasn't evil. I wasn't a murderer. I wasn't capable of that.

Except that apparently I was.

The death of my horse took the mask of lies I had worn all my life and wrenched it away so that I could see it for what it was: a porcelain death-mask moulded tight to the worm-riddled rotting face of the corpse.

 _This is what you are,_ a voice whispered. _This, Corvus, Jack, whatever the fuck your name is, is what you have always been._

Despair is a kind of intoxicant in its own right. I'd never thought of it as coming within the boundaries of Sanguine's petty little princedom before, but I was revelling in it now. I'd supped so deeply of despair I was drunk on it.

For all that people fear Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon, for all Boethia and Mephala's scheming to bring down Empires, I think Sanguine the most dangerous of the lot.

Not everyone seeks power or wealth, but what man doesn't crave pleasure? Even those who claim they don't, hunger instead for the sharp-edged thrills an ascetic life can bring: for scourging whips and horsehair shirts, the bite of hunger gnawing at their ribs.

The line between pleasure and pain is finer than a hair's breadth.

Always, always, it's one or the other: desire or despair. Both can rip a man apart and scatter the fragments to the winds. And he might be able to patch himself back together afterwards, but he'll never be quite the same. The seams in his heart and in his soul will remain. He'll never forget how it felt to be so wild and free, and his life forever after naught but a prison.

 _Come back to me when you've leavened, kid_.

Perhaps the cold had burrowed its way inside me and left a splinter of ice in my heart. I felt as if I'd been hollowed out from within.

How could I return to Millona like this, with blood on my hands and murders on my conscience? She deserved better than me.

What would happen, I wondered, if I destroyed the cowl? It couldn't be burned, but I could take a knife to it. Shred each fibre of the felted wool, pick apart the seams. I wasn't fool enough to think that might break the curse. Daedric artifacts aren't that easy to destroy, They're formed from the essence of a Daedric Lord, and although they might be removed from the mortal realm, they tend to find their way back eventually. How long might that take? A decade? Two? It could be as long as centuries before the cowl slipped back into my hands again, if it ever did. More likely it would find its way into the possession of a more trustworthy Champion, but I had no doubt it would take its time and I would be left to suffer this nothing-life in punishment for failing a mistress I'd never chosen.

In destroying it, I would cut myself adrift. It was my one last tether to the world. At least the Fox was remembered. Without the cowl, I would be nothing but a stranger, watching people from afar and living out the rest of my days as a shadow. It would drive me mad. I think that was already starting to happen. So then I'd have to add Sheogorath to the list of deities who made it their business to fuck with me on a regular basis. Well, he could join the back of the fucking queue.

It was Jirav who found me half-frozen in the snow. I heard the crunch of his boots as he trod his old familiar path from the monk's quarters to the chapel, pausing when he saw me, a darker shadow against the gray of the rocks. He searched his memory for my name and came up wanting with a grimace of embarrassment.

"Brother," he said, "you'll catch your death."

"I'm half-frozen already. A little more won't make a difference."

"Are you all right?"

I lifted my head and met his gaze. "My horse is dead," I said and his eyes widened in horror.

"No! Not Phantom. Oh gods, Brother. I'm so sorry. I know how you loved that horse." He came forwards, and helped me to my feet, brushing off the snow with motherly little clucks of his tongue. His hand froze, hovering over the bloodied rent in my clothes. "What happened?"

"Troll." My voice was flat, hollow and despairing. "Came out of fucking nowhere. It ripped Phantom's neck open, nearly killed me too."

"Shit. But you're all right? Do you need healing? I can–"

"I'm fine, Jirav," I snapped. "Let me be. Just..." Tears were rising up, stinging bitterly at my eyes. It was the way he was looking at me, how worried he was for me and how little I deserved his concern. I drew in a deep breath as he led me inside the monks' quarters and set me down by the hearth. "I don't think I can do this anymore."

He hesitated before speaking, in a way that suggested he was trying out various responses, trying to work out how I might react. "Getting sick of the monkish life, eh?" he said, finally picking mock-jollity. Beneath the lightness of his tone, I caught the edge of fear. "Take the trip to Bruma with Brother Holger next time he goes. Take Brother Primus with you, why not? Make the old goat's era."

"It isn't that." My knuckles were red-raw, my hands cramping as they warmed through. "It's me."

He turned and studied me. There was a strange expression on his face, one I could not quite read.

How much of the deception did Brother Jirav recognise when he looked at me? I might not have lied in the strictest sense of the word when I'd dangled an Elder Scroll before him to entice him on, but I hadn't corrected his misconception either. He'd heard what he wanted to hear, what he secretly longed for in his heart. Isn't that what most people long for? To be the hero. To be special. To be remembered.

He dreamed of discovering a new Elder Scroll, of delivering it into the hands of the Elders at the White-Gold Tower. Of a pat on the head – _Good monk!_ – and perhaps of having the privilege of being the first one to unfurl it, to be the first to quest after whatever secrets might lie in its tangled depths.

Such would be his payment for his betrayal of the Order, for inviting a cuckoo into the nest. That's what he heard, and bastard that I was, I didn't bother to correct him.

 _Don't,_ I thought. _Don't do it._

Here I might be able to carve myself a life of a sort, even if it was loveless and stunted and nothing like the life I'd hoped for. Who really gets the life they want, anyway? I'd always known how unnatural it was for me to be so happy with Millona. How unworthy I was, and how undeserving. If she wanted to wait for me, fool herself into thinking I might be coming back...

"Something wrong?" Jirav asked.

"Yes." I flexed my hands, flinching at the prickling agonies that them. "I've done something – many things – wrong."

"We all make mistakes."

"This is more than just a mistake." I shook my head. "I always thought myself a certain kind of man. I mean, I always knew I could be a bastard when I wanted to be. When I needed to be. But I always tried to be a good man. So I thought, anyway."

"Ah. So it's that kind of mistake."

"I lie, Brother Jirav. Even when I'm telling the truth I lie. It's like... It's like I can't stop myself. Maybe I don't even want to. I've lied to you. To the other monks. To my wife. And to myself. And I can't help wondering, if maybe my reason for being here... this whole bloody business is just me lying to myself again."

"About what?"

"I don't know." But I did. Of course I fucking did. "Have you read the latest edition of ' _A Guide to Anvil_ '?"

"I had a flick through. Much the same as the last edition, really."

"Not quite. Because the last edition was released in 421." I caught his puzzled look. "Before the count's mysterious disappearance."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"'Most persons would agree that Her Ladyship is better off without him'. Maybe she's right, the vicious little bitch. Maybe she's _right._ "

"I know the count had a bit of a reputation," he said, looking baffled, "but I hardly see–"

"She deserves better."

"Than what?"

"Than _me_."

He gave me a sharp look at that, studying me. At that I felt a pang of desolate hope, because if anyone was able to pierce the web of daedric lies that had ensnared me, it would be a Moth Priest. "You're thinking of giving up."

"I'm tired. I'm already exhausted and I've barely even begun. This, all of this, it's just the first step on a journey I'm not sure I should even be taking. So yes, I'm thinking of giving up."

"And what of the Elder Scroll?" he urged. "What of your duties?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Jirav. I'm not really a monk. I'm not one of you, and you know it. I'm a faker and a fraud–"

"You certainly will be if that's what you keep telling yourself," he said. "Admit it, you've touched something here."

It came rising up through the web of despair that enmeshed me, a bitter spike of humour. "Myself mostly."

Jirav smiled despite his frustration. "Yes, I've noticed. You need to learn to be more subtle."

"I had the knack of it once. I haven't shared a room with anyone other than my wife in years . And apparently you're far too good at pretending to be asleep."

"Ah well. You've had years of marriage. I've had years of being a monk. It comes from practice." The ghost of a smile. "I mean it though, and don't think I can't see how you're trying to change the subject. You may not have come to the Order by traditional means, but you still came, and I believe it was meant to happen. The Elder Scroll brought you here."

"The Elder Scroll. Of course." What would he say, I wondered, if I told him there was no Elder Scroll? Not the undiscovered one he longed for, at least.

His lips tightened in determination and he stood up abruptly. "Come with me. There's something you ought to see."

"You're not going to teach me how to masturbate without anyone noticing, are you?"

"Well, if you haven't learned by watching me, I'm not sure there's any hope for you." He spread his hands, and although he kept his voice casual he blushed scarlet right to the tips of his ears. "I'm masturbating right now. Can't you tell?"

And gods help me, he made me laugh, a choked-up sound that was more of a sob. I drew a ragged breath and shoved myself up, stumbling after him towards the door.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm going to show you the true reason why this monastery was built here, so far from bloody civilisation we might as well be in Skyrim."

~o~O~o~

The entrance to the cave was concealed in the rock face, hidden from view beneath a veil of draping ivy and icicles. Beyond the entrance rough-hewn steps led downwards, slippery with ice, with a length of knotted silken rope to act as a bannister fastened to the wall at intervals. I hesitated, the old fears closing in on me, but there was no smell of death and decay. Still I held back, my heart hammering, as Jirav started down the steps. When he realised I wasn't following, he glanced back, clinging onto the rope. "Something wrong?"

"I don't like tight spaces. Dark spaces. Caves."

"It'll open up in a minute. You'll see."

I wasn't sure I believed him. As the steps led down, the walls closed in still further. The air lost its frozen bite and as we took twists and turns, some through narrow crevices barely wide enough for me to squeeze through, the light darkened. At a tunnel where the roof dropped so low I had to bend double, I stopped and glanced back over my shoulder, wondering whether I shouldn't turn back. I could no longer see Jirav; he'd moved on so far ahead the darkness had claimed him, but I heard his soft voice urging me on over the sound of rushing water.

"We're almost there."

 _Fuck it_ , I thought. What did I have to lose?

And on I went, ducking past a series of damp stalactites that clawed damply at the back of my neck. A fringe of hanging moss trailed across my cheeks, leaving them wet with cold tears and then the cavern opened up. The sight of it felt like a bodily blow, a fierce punch to the solar plexus that knocked all the air from my lungs.

It was one of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen.

The walls of the cavern were of shimmering crystal, illuminated by a silvery light filtering down through a hole in the rocky ceiling. The sound of water I'd heard came from a waterfall, which tumbled down over a series of stepped crystalline basins that reminded me of altars in a chapel. The falls fed into a deep underground lake, the deep turquoise water lapping at the edges of a rocky outcrop, weathered granite covered with a thin layer of fertile soil. Feathery grass crowded its banks and clustered around the gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, with branches weighed down by leaves the colour of blossom.

And everywhere, _everywhere_ , there were moths.

I'd thought the insects plentiful in the monastery, but here millions of them thronged the air. They covered the ground like a living rug, and fluttered around me, filling the air with constant movement. The air was filled with the scent of their dust; that spice I never could quite identify, not quite cinnamon or allspice or star anise, prickled at my tongue.

There were so many of them it felt as if I was swimming through them, so many I could barely see Jirav through the swarm. His eyes were wide and bright, and he was grinning at me like a delighted schoolboy. I didn't have to see my reflection in a looking glass to know I was wearing the same borderline idiotic grin, the two of us grinning inanely at each other children who knew they'd stumbled across something truly magical.

I had to raise my voice to be heard over the sound of the waterfall. "What is this place?"

"An Ancestor Glade. And that..." He pointed down the slope, towards the tree. "That's the canticle tree."

"So this is..."

"A sacred place," he said. "Watch your step. It can be slippery."

We followed the steps down, clinging onto the silken rope and picking our steps through the moths on the ground. A narrow footbridge bridge led across to the island on which the tree stood. The closer I drew to the tree, the more rich and sweetly scented the air. In the shade of the tree, away from the roar of the waterfall the soft muted hum of the moths filled the air. I could feel the vibration in the fabric of my shirt.

Stunned, I realised that the crushing weight of numbed exhaustion had eased. The hollow pit of despair in my chest was gone. I felt no fear, no pain, and although I was still weary, it felt like falling into a freshly made bed, the sheets cool and welcoming after a sweltering day. It felt like arms around me, a warm hearth and a woman singing. Like gentle hands picking me up and setting me back on my feet after I'd fallen over. A voice whispered, ' _All will be well_ ' and for once I almost believed it.

Jirav was watching me. "It's something, isn't it?"

"It's..." I didn't know quite how to put it, so instead I shrugged helplessly.

"I thought it might help. To see this Glade, to understand a little more about what the Scrolls are, what they can do..."

"I mean..." I cleared my throat, which suddenly felt sore with the crushing grip of rising tears. "I'm not sure this makes things any clearer."

"Well, no. Not clearer, exactly." He sighed, and I glanced around at him. He was standing by the trunk of the canticle tree, his fingers not quite brushing the bark. The trunk was pitted with healing scars where countless Moth Priests before us had scraped away samples. The knots and whirls and patterns in the bark seemed to hold meaning, and the spring-coloured leaves rustled although the air was still. "It makes me wonder," he murmured, tilting his head back and gazing up into the branches, "why people bother with the Aedra."

I gave a bark of laughter. "Bloody hell. I never had you pegged for a heretic."

"If you ask me it's the et'Ada that should be considered heretical. This grove is... well, it's ancient." And finally he let his fingers brush against the bark. The leaves rustled as a cloud of moths rose up from the branches, and he laughed out loud. "I wouldn't be surprised if this tree, this beautiful precious tree, is older than those damned mountains above us. The Aedra are pallid reflections in a murky lake. How could anyone bother with Dibella or Mara or _any_ of them after seeing something like this?"

"I'm well ahead of you, my friend. I didn't bother with the gods _before_ I saw this."

There was a tremor in my voice. Jirav heard it and shot me a knowing look. I felt light-headed, dizzy with the effect of the moth dust I was inhaling with every breath. A shivery sensation rippled through my mind, like grass stirred by the wind. A moth came too close to my eyes, and I closed my eyes instinctively, felt at the same moment a touch against the back of my hand. The gentlest brush of fingers against my knuckles.

 _Damn_. I should have suspected after that crack about masturbating. Although I'd never suspected Jirav was that way inclined.

"Not that I'm not flattered," I said, opening my eyes. "But I'm not sure–"

No one was there. Only the moths. I lifted my hand, glanced at the swollen knuckles, the outlines of the veins.

"Jirav?"

He'd vanished. The island empty, under the shade of the canticle tree, the heavy scent of the air. Jirav nowhere to be seen, and still that sense of someone sitting beside me, the moths stirring and the sensation of the air disturbed by their wings, like breath. Looking around, I finally saw him. He'd moved away from the island without me realising, withdrawing discreetly to give me some time to reflect alone. Except I knew instinctively that I wasn't alone. Someone stood there with me, someone who had brushed their fingers against the back of my hand, who even now stood beside me and waited for me to shut my eyes.

I closed my eyes. Felt again the touch of fingers against the back of my hand, firmer now, tracing up over the pad of my thumb. I let my hand fell open, felt fingers slip into the palm of my hand and entwine with mine. It was a touch I remembered, a touch I knew.

"Millona," I whispered, and the moths stirred. Rustling above me, sounded like silk. Whether it was vision or dream or imaginings I cannot say, only that it felt more real to me than anything else that had happened recently. Everything that had happened before I'd entered this Glade felt like a bad dream, already breaking apart in the light of day.

I brought her hand up to my mouth and pressed my lips into the hollow of her palm. It smelled mostly of moth spice, but there was a hint of my wife's scent there too, the faint lingering trace of horse and of her skin.

She leaned closer, and I felt the warmth of her body against mine, her breath against my brow as she kissed my forehead. _Corvus_.

I gave a choked sob. "Gods, I miss you. I miss you so much."

The faintest touch of her lips against my eyelids, first the left and then the right. _I know,_ she whispered.

"It's not… I don't mean…" My eyes screwed up. A dozen heartbeats passed before I judged my voice steady enough to speak. Was it truly her, or a hallucination brought on my moth-dust and despair? I thought of the prelate and his stories, his talk of how the moths could ride the currents of the dreamsleeve and whisper secrets into the ears of the sleepers visiting there. "I don't expect anything. And I know we can never go back to the way things were. I don't deserve you, my love."

A faint shivery stir of breath by my ear. It felt like laughter. _I know_.

"If you'd found someone else, if I'd thought you were happy without me…" I took a breath. It hurt, that thought, the image of her remarrying or taking a lover, but it hurt more to see her miserable. I could have borne it with stoicism so long as I thought her happy. But I wasn't the only one who needed freeing from a prison of loneliness. "It'd make things simpler at least."

 _Nothing about you was ever simple._

"I bloody wish it was." Another shivery breath. If I turned my head, I thought, I might be able to kiss her. And then I'd probably get a mouthful of moth, which, given I was probably already hallucinating on the dust in the air alone, seemed unwise. "I'm coming home, my love. I swear I will. Even if I have to claw my way back to you I'm coming home."

 _And I'll be waiting._

In a heartbeat she was gone. Nothing then but me and the swarming moths, the feathery brush of legs and wings and antennae tickling every inch of my exposed skin. I sank down onto my haunches and then onto my backside in the long grass, and I was crying without realising it, tears streaming down my cheeks.

And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I prayed. I, who hadn't bothered praying in years, who'd thought the gods heedless and heartless, wept and prayed, not to the Aedra, but to something ancient and solemn and holy. To something which regarded me with love and sympathy and compassion, and whispered in my ear, ' _All will be well_.'


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: As always, thank you to Tafferling for betaing.**

 **Please note that this chapter contains a brief depiction of a violent rape.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty-Four**

" _Never compromise. Never blink. Never wink at injustice. Never quit trying to make this a better city for everyone._ "

– Hieronymus Lex

In 433 everything changed. The assassination of the Emperor and his sons sent us all reeling. Harvest's End should have been a day for rejoicing and celebration. It was a traditional day for people to get betrothed, and in less prim circles to consummate their future marriages. Coupling on Harvest's End was said to be a sure way to guarantee pregnancy, and in Colovia it was considered good luck for the bride to be pregnant on her wedding day. I myself would always remember it fondly as the anniversary of the day I first met Millona.

And now it would be remembered as the day the Septim Empire came crashing down.

I was midway along the Silver Road from Bruma to the Imperial City when I got my first hint that something had happened. The first sign was a _Black Horse Courier_ rider, riding flat-out, who gave no reaction to my hail. It was an excuse to rest the inn in Aleswell where the courier had stopped to change her horse and to relate her news, confused and garbled as it was. It was from the Dunmer innkeeper that I heard the news that the Emperor was dead.

I'm sorry to say it meant little to me then. No one could have seen the full consequences of his death. Emperors die. Especially old ones. That's the reason they have heirs.

Even so, if I hadn't been so caught up with my own affairs, I still might have taken the time to wonder at having lived through the turn of history: Uriel Septim VII had survived a decade of torment and torture in Oblivion while another man wore his face. His reign had seen miracles like the Warp in the West and the rise of the Nerevarine, and I regret how callously I regarded his death, and those of his sons. He was, in truth, a great man. His sons rather less so, although I suspect Crown Prince Geldall would have made a far better Emperor than I ever made a count.

But I was distracted by business of my own. After all, I had a thief to meet.

~o~O~o~

I knew it would be her, from the very moment I met her.

She wasn't much to look at. Nibenese, with badly cut black hair and sharp features. A lopsided grin that seemed either mocking or half-witted depending on the angle. Battered ill-fitting leather armour and a tendency to lie through her teeth about anything and everything at every opportunity. Born, I noted, under the sign of the Thief. I didn't take much notice of signs in the normal course of things, but in her case, it seemed fitting. Where she came from, who she really was, no one knew. They'd always get a different story, a different lie; some were believable, and others ludicrous, and all told with that lopsided smirk.

"I was there when the Emperor copped it," she told Armande, grinning. It was a sharp-toothed I'm-lying-to-you grin cast at him over the rim of her brandy glass. I was with them in the Garden, not as the Fox, but as myself, hanging back in the shadows and nursing my own brandy. Behind her, Methredhel, the Bosmer Armande had already earmarked as having potential, rolled her eyes, still sore at having been bested in the challenge to steal the diary.

"You weren't the one that killed him, were you?" Armande asked, and the grin widened.

"Nah, not me. I was too busy shitting myself." She winked. "But I saw the one't did him in. He came right at me after. Fucking miracle I survived. And then the Blades was gonna kill me too, just to add insult to injury."

"Well, of course," Armande said, his tone deeply sardonic. "You failed to protect the Emperor. What happened, you run like bloody fuck?"

She shook her head, still grinning. Behind her, Methredhel twirled her finger at her temple. "He trusted me," my thief said. "Enough to give me his amulet. And I've still got it, ain't I?" She patted her pocket. "Right here, tucked away where it's nice and safe."

"His amulet..." And this was a lie too far for Armande. "You're saying you've got the Amulet of Kings tucked away in your pocket? The Amulet of fucking _Kings_?"

I gave a soft laugh and moved forwards into the circle of torchlight. Methredhel jumped, and Armande stiffened, glancing up at me like he'd forgotten I was there. Only my thief gave no reaction, as if she'd known I was there all along. Something shivered up my spine as I poured myself a glass of brandy and hunkered down in the grass.

She pulled something from her pocket, only for a second or two, the firelight playing across a stone that I immediately and instinctively marked as paste. Because it had to be. Tacky ugly stage jewellery, nothing more. A prop from a play perhaps. It never occurred to me that it might be real, but I didn't see a flicker in her performance that told me otherwise – only her grin, daring us to call her bluff.

We see what we expect to see.

 _She's good,_ I thought. _Almost good enough that I believe her._

"He handed it over," she said, and she was no longer speaking to Armande but to me. "Handed it over, and said I was the one from his dreams."

"Well," I said, "I'm starting to think you might be the one from mine."

I wouldn't have looked at her twice, except...

Except that the cowl whispered.

 _This one_ , it told me, its voice like a whisper of moth-silk in my head, like the rustle of ravens' wings. _This one will do._

Whatever I had that marked me out, that my predecessor saw when he looked at me, she had it too, this thief who didn't look like much, whose armour stank like the arse-end of a putrefying rat (And I spent my formative years in Bravil: I know rats).

In her I saw either my death or my deliverance, and after ten years of purgatory, this nothing-existence of loneliness and isolation, either would have done.

There had been others over the years, a tug, a whispering, as the cowl recognised someone who might be worthy of it. Even Hieronymous Lex, famed nemesis of the Gray Fox, stalwart and incorruptible Watch Captain, had it a little. I confess I was a little tempted by the delightful irony of passing the cowl onto him, but I wasn't that much of a bastard, and he was too good a man to corrupt. Besides, incorruptible men have their uses. For one thing, they're predictable.

But this girl... this sly natural liar, for whom deceit came as easily as breathing, she was hungry and eager, and the sort destined to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time, depending on your point of view.

She wasn't much. But she'd do.

~o~O~o~

"I have heard," I said, bringing the ale to my lips, "that the Gray Fox is an exceedingly slippery fellow."

"He's a scourge," the man before me said. "A menace. And I will do everything in my power to see him brought to justice."

"'The Law is Sacred?"

"Just so."

"Still, I've heard he's a dangerous man."

"Dangerous? Ha!" Lex slapped his hand down on the bar. "I'm sure he would like you to think so. No doubt it's all part of his..." He paused, waving a hand in the air.

"His mystique?" I suggested, beckoning the barman over. "Please, Captain Lex, may I offer you another?"

Lex obliged his head graciously. "Much obliged, citizen. Much obliged."

"Not at all, Captain." I set my bunched fist above my heart. "To buy a drink for a man dedicating his life and career to capturing a nefarious criminal as ingenious and devastatingly handsome as the Gray Fox is said to be. A veritable _honour_ , sir."

"Well, I... thank you."

"And after all those times he's simply slipped through your fingers."

Lex scowled, his face darkening, "Aye, he's a slippery one. And I'm afraid not all in our city are so eager to uphold the law as you, sir."

"No indeed. I'm a positive paragon of virtue. Why, I've never stolen so much as an apple. But an honest man is a rare thing these days, sadly." As he grunted in agreement, I leaned closer. He took several long swallows of his ale, his thirst helped along by a bowl of heavily salted roasted potatoes. Gave a man a thirst, they did, and the innkeep kept replenishing at regular intervals. Almost as if he'd been bribed to make sure they never ran out. "May I ask, Captain, what sort of man is the Fox? What do you know about him, _exactly_?"

I let curiosity gleam in my eyes and waited for him to take the bait. Lex was the youngest Watch Captain in living history, and eager for respect. His reputation for dedication, honesty, incorruptibility, and, I'm sorry to say, idiocy, preceded him. The last was not entirely fair: Lex was no idiot, only a little naïve, far too dogmatic, and extremely stubborn. He was a fine man. A decent man, and one who didn't deserve the mockery and opprobrium cast his way, only once he got an idea in his head, he was hard to turn, and some of his fellow officers, the ones who weren't quite so dedicated and incorruptible, encouraged him in his one-man crusade against... well, against me. Not that I minded. Frankly it was nice to be appreciated.

Lex pondered my question. "What sort of man is the Gray Fox? Well, let's see... You call him dangerous and ingenious, well, I'm sure he'd like you to think so. And as for handsome... Fa!"

' _Fa_?' I took a sip of ale to hide my bitter grimace. It might have true my days of unthinking good looks were well behind me, but on a good day I liked to think I still had a certain battered charm. I hardly thought I warranted a 'Fa!'

"But what sort of man is he?" I pressed, when the sting had faded. "What do you know? Is he Argonian, or Imperial? A Breton perhaps? Tall, short, fair, dark..."

"He's Colovian, we know that much. Other than that..." Lex took a gulp of ale and sighed. The sting of an old resentment glinted in his eyes. "You know, for a time, I thought he might be a Redguard."

"Ah, I do seem to remember, now that you mention it... a couple of years ago..."

"A trick was played upon me," he said grimly. "A most malicious trick."

"That's right. I recall seeing your name in the Black Horse Courier. Along with another... What was it now?"

"Armande Christophe." He growled the name. Had he been a dog I might have backed off a bit. "The damned cur. He allowed me to think him the Fox, through trickery and guile, and then, when the time finally came to arrest him, to haul him before the court in chains..."

"The true Fox showed his face," I said softly.

He lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes filled with a deep weight of hurt. "I thought I had him, Citizen. I was convinced I had him. And then in he strolled, bold as a tomcat, straight into the court as plain as day. 'Why, it seems I am late for my own trial, gentleman!' says he. 'My apologies. Still, at the very least you could have found a more convincing fellow to take my place. Why, this poor Redguard doesn't look sharp enough to steal a lock of hair from a corpse.'"

Lex shuddered and took another swallow of ale.

"And then," he continued, "I didn't know it at the time, but the following day was to be the judge's daughter's wedding day. While we were preparing for the trial, the Fox had robbed his house, stripped it clear of every valuable, all his wife's jewellery, the silver, _everything_. The Fox laughed and threw down the jewelled headdress the bride was to wear on the morrow. 'This I had better spare,' says he. 'Any thief knows it's bad luck to steal from a bride before her wedding day. Why, I might be unlucky enough to get arrested!' And then he laughed."

Lex's eyes slid closed, hands trembling at the force of the memory of humiliation. "I looked at Christophe and he was laughing too. They were _all_ laughing, every single man and woman there. Well..." He shifted guiltily. "All except for the judge."

"They are fools, Captain," I told him, and laid my hand upon his. He flinched at my touch, the corners of his lips turning down. "Anyone could see it. You ask me, the Fox was running scared. Why else would he try so hard to undermine your credibility and turn you into a laughing stock? Stay true to your course, Captain, and you'll win through in the end. In fact I reckon..." I shot a glance around the bar and leaned closer. "I reckon you could be closer than you think."

"I'd have him," he growled, as the innkeeper set down another bowl of roasted potatoes on the bar. Flakes of rock salt encrusted them like diamonds. "I'd have him if it wasn't for that damned accursed cowl."

"I've heard it's enchanted," I said, feeling the weight of the damned accursed cowl (I was with him on that) in my pocket.

"Enchanted, aye, and of daedric origin too. All lies and bluster. He's just a man, an insolent cur with no concept of his place in the world. Good enough for fooling the credulous and beggars but no canny man would fall for such a shallow trick, sir, you mark me."

"I'm certain you're right," I said, and plucked a roasted potato from the bowl, turning it in my fingers to stop it from burning me.

"No, he's just a man. Although..." He frowned. "It had occurred to me, you know... that perhaps there might be more than one."

"More than one what?"

"More than one Fox."

I went still. The heat of the potato seared my fingers and I dropped it onto the bar. Lex didn't notice. I sucked salt and hot beef dripping from my thumb while Lex murmured to himself.

"More than one Fox, aye, and more than one cowl too. It would explain a great deal, how he manages to evade us with such ease... And after all, the purpose of a cowl..."

"...Is to conceal a man's true identity." I said, my voice hollow. I stared at him, wondered that he could not see the yearning in my gaze, how I longed for him to look at me and see me as more than the friendly stranger who bought him drinks in the Spotted Boar and urged him for news of his quest to bring to justice the most infamous thief in Cyrodilic history. Never before, in all my searching for clues to the identity of the first Fox, had I ever heard or read anyone suggest the Fox might not be a single individual. Only Lex, who saw himself as my nemesis, whose heart and soul and mind was given over to the single task of seeing me caught, had been able to do such a thing.

He would have seen me strung up. I could have kissed him.

I blinked away my tears. "Another drink, Captain?"

"I still have half an ale left."

"A brandy then. I insist. It's the least I can do for a man who does so much to keep the city safe. I for one feel a great deal safer knowing you won't rest until the Fox is brought to justice."

"Much obliged, sir. And don't you worry. I'll drive the Gray Fox to ground soon enough. He'll be rotting in a jail cell before the month is out, you mark me." A twitch of his lips, and he leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. " And I believe I can trust you enough to tell you this, Citizen: you were right. I'll wager we are closer than he thinks."

As the innkeep set down the brandy glass, I widened my eyes. "You can't mean..."

"Let's just say not all his people are so loyal to him as he'd like to believe."

"You mean to say you have an informant? In the Thieves' Guild? My goodness!"

"It's no guild. Nothing but a ragged bunch of thieves who think themselves above the law. Well, I say no one is above the law, and to suggest otherwise is to spit in the face of the Emperor, may Arkay speed his passing."

"But who is this man? Or woman? What sort of person would betray the man they call guildmaster with so little consideration for their own well-being?"

"Rats flee sinking ships, do they not, and a flash of coin is often enough to persuade a thief to turn their coat. But more than that, sir, I'm afraid I cannot tell you." He tapped his nose and lifted the brandy to his lips. "It is not information I am at liberty to share, although I thank you for your interest. And indeed, for the brandy."

~o~O~o~

With the collapse of the bath house, we had no true guild chapterhouse. We moved from place to place on a whim and at the turn of the wind and rumour. Most guild business was done in the Garden, where look-outs could be set and we could scatter at a moment's notice. Other business might be conducted in a private room at the Rat, or the homes of those loyal to the guild, or various abandoned buildings. Sometimes when there were a great many of us we took over the basement level of shops, and conducted our business there while their owners slumbered in a harmless alchemical doze upstairs. It worked well enough, although I missed the warmth of the baths, the glimpses of the attendants seen through shimmered curtains. I might be celibate these days, but that didn't mean I was blind.

The house where I met Armande belonged to a Breton artist and forger who owed his loyalty by rights to the Daggerfall guild, but had interests in Cyrodiil. Every surface was cluttered with paints, and canvases leaned against every wall. An easel took pride of place in the centre of the room, the painting upon it a partially finished copy of the third triptych of _The Song of Pelinal._ depicting the aftermath of the battle between Pelinal Whitestrake and Umaril the Unfeathered,

Morihaus, all bovine bulk and horns and feathered wings, bore Whitestrake's head aloft and roared his fury to the skies while the elf-kings cowered. It was a fine piece of work, indistinguishable to the untrained eye from the real painting that hung (or more accurately used to hang, although most people believe it hangs there still) in the White-Gold Tower. The Breton made a better forger than an artist, in my opinion. His other notable work-in-progress gazed at me from a nearby table: a clay bust of me wearing the cowl, waiting to be cast in bronze. The artist had made me look far more noble than I deserved.

"We were right about Lex," I called out to Armande, pulling on my own cowl. "He has an informant."

He made a furious sound as he emerged from the back of the workshop. "Godsdamn, I fucking knew it. That son-of-a-bitch. He give you any idea who?"

"No." I turned away from the bust, rolling my shoulders. "And I doubt he will. He's not that stupid. We'll have to resort to other means."

He drew back his lips, not quite a smile, and I felt a pang of loss for the Armande I remembered, the boy who'd always been quick to smile. "I've got some ideas. Leave it to me."

"No one is to get hurt, Armande."

"Course not."

"Capital. Good man." I frowned. "And the matter of our other business? Because I can't help noticing that the girl I am meant to be meeting seems to be very conspicuously absent."

He let out a weary sigh. "Might have bet on a bad loser there. She's about as trustworthy as a patch of quicksand."

"Not necessarily a bad thing in a thief."

He grunted. "I've already said my piece. You're making a mistake laying it all on her. You know I'd do it, right?"

"I know you would. But this business is far too dangerous, Armande. I won't risk you and in any case you're not exactly built for stealth."

"You're saying this bint is better than me," he said flatly.

"Yes."

He flinched.

"What, you weren't expecting me to tell the truth?" I shrugged. "I owe you better than that. You're a fine thief, Armande. Decent enough for the bread-and-butter work. You're tough and you're reliable. And more than that, you're a damn good man and I'd trust you with my life, but for a job like this... you're simply not good enough."

His jaw tightened, then he sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fuck it, you're probably right. About me, anyway. She's another matter."

"Where is she?"

"I got a message from a runner early this morning. Saying she can't make our little appointment because she's been sent to Kvatch." Armande's tone was heavily ironic.

" _Sent_? By whom?"

He bared his teeth. "By the Grandmaster of the Blades apparently."

"The Grandmaster of the–" I stared at him. "You're shitting me."

Armande shrugged and held up his hands. "That's what she said."

I gawped at him, then laughed, shaking my head. "Yeah. And if _that'_ s not her lying through her teeth then I'm really the missing Count of Anvil."

"And gods know that can't be true," Armande said, and for the first time in longer than I can remember he was smiling. "Everyone knows the Count of Anvil was handsome."

"Ouch." I slapped my hand over my heart and saw him flinch at the familiar gesture. His brow creased, and I saw the spark of memory in his eyes all too quickly pinched out. My heart skipped.

It was moments like this, cracks in the isolating prison that encased me, that gave me hope. That made me wonder if I couldn't be a little more like the bust of the Fox after all, a noble man at heart, struggling despite all to odds to do his best by his people, his wife, himself.

Godsdamnit, I tried, didn't I? That had to be worth something.

A scant shard of Masser glimmered through the window. It was a night made for simple pleasures, for making love under the stars, for running the thieves' highway unseen, for swimming in moon-kissed water and drinking late into the night with friends.

The perfect night for a moonlit ride.

I sighed. "Kvatch, was it?"

"That's what she said. Fuck knows why. She might have been full of shit... Well, I know she's full of shit, but I don't think she was lying about heading that way. You want me to get the word out, call her back?"

I shook my head. "No, don't bother. I'm heading that way anyway. Might as well stop in and see if I don't run into her." Kvatch seemed as good a place as any, and I could head on to Anvil afterwards. It had been too long since I'd seen Millona, and I missed her like an ache in my chest. "Anyway, Kvatch is lovely at this time of year."

~o~O~o~

Kvatch was indeed beautiful, with the roar of a celebrating crowd rising up from the arena, and the gardens heavy with late summer blossoms. I left my horse at the stables, and left a message with a beggar to let my thief know I'd be waiting in the _Host and Hart_ inn. Even considering the positive mood I had been in recently, I was still aching and weary to my bones. A hot meal would see me right, along with some Kvatchian ale, strongly flavoured with hops and malt, a shot or two of their fine spiced gin, and a featherbed I could sink into and not resurface for a week.

Of my thief there was no sign. Not that that surprised me. She was just the type to get sidetracked along the way, and I could wait her out. In the parlour of the inn, I tucked into my stew, enjoying the muted hubbub. It got rather rowdier when the arena closed for the evening and the crowd pressed inside for a quick pint and a bite of food before they headed home. The parlour filled with excited chattering about the fights of the day, good-natured bickering about the finer points of the various champions – their strengths and weaknesses, how far they'd be likely to go before they finally succumbed to the bite of the blade. It made a welcome change from speculation about the Emperor's death and what the Elder Council might do about the matter of succession with no heirs to take their place on the Ruby Throne.

Maybe I'd stop in at the arena myself if my thief didn't turn up soon, I thought, finishing off my ale. Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps. From their talk it sounded like several of the fights were expected to be particularly exciting ones. It had been a long time since I'd had the chance simply to relax and enjoy myself.

The hubbub quietened as people finished their drinks and peeled away home, I ordered another ale, and drank it slowly, enjoying every last sip, before I eventually hauled my weary aching carcass up the stairs to bed.

I think you can probably guess what happened next.

~o~O~o~

It was a scream that woke me. It reached down into the tumult of my dreams and jerked me unceremoniously back into the waking world. And for a moment I couldn't be certain if the scream was real or part of the dream – it had seemed to come from very far away.

A hammering on the door downstairs brought me fully into consciousness, along with a woman's voice raised in panic, the sound of a baby's cry. I rose out of bed with a grunt, and dressed quickly, jerking on my discarded trousers and my shirt. I buckled my sword belt around my waist as I went for the door, out into the corridor and down the stairs.

Below, all was chaos and noise: the baby's cry ratcheting up to inconsolable wails now, the tramp of boots, and the sound of other doors opening, other voices murmuring in consternation. The innkeeper was muttering, "Hold on, hold on," as he unlatched the door and I heard him curse as it swung open, slapping against the wall with a bang.

"What the fu–"

" _Close it! Close it!_ " The man who'd burst inside was weeping, his voice ragged with sobbing, shrill with terror. " _For the love of Lady Mara, close the door!_ "

The innkeeper stood frozen for a moment, staring down at the terrified man cowering on the ground, and then turned his head to stare outside. The street was empty, and I felt an instinctive shudder of fear at the silent darkness.

"There's nothing–"

"Close it! Oh gods, please close it, I'm begging you!"

The innkeep's wife wrapped her arm tighter around the babe squalling in her arms. Her face had paled, and her jiggling movements, meant to soothe the child, had become too rapid and jerky, serving only to upset it further. "Brennan..."

The innkeep shook himself. "Right." He shut the door and the cowering man gave a wrenching sob of relief, babbling his thanks as the door was latched and bolted.

"What the fuck's going on?" I demanded, coming down the last of the steps.

The innkeeper turned his baffled gaze on me. "Search me. Got himself robbed, maybe?"

The innkeeper's wife pushed the wailing baby into the arms of her startled husband and knelt beside the terrified man. He was still shaking, his clothes blackened with soot as if he'd been caught in a fire, and was clutching his arm to him as if it had been badly injured. She murmured that she had some skills as a healer, but he kept snatching his hand back, mumbling something under his breath, his voice urgent.

She looked up, her eyes bright with fear. "He's not making any sense."

He raised his voice. "There's a gate. A _gate_. They swarmed through. C...countless... Countless!"

"What swarmed through?" I asked, and the innkeeper shot me a grim look, then directed his gaze down the corridor. I looked around and saw a cluster of children, ranging in ages from three to about thirteen, listening in as nosy children are wont to do.

"Glass of brandy, Else," the innkeeper said.

"Very generous of you," I said, my voice hollow. "Maybe you'd better ask our guest if he wants one too though." The innkeeper snorted.

The woman nodded, and took the baby back, murmuring something soothing under her voice. The eavesdropping children fled as she swept towards them, scolding softly.

The innkeeper squatted down by the man. "What came through the gate, friend?"

The man gave a choked-up terrified laugh. "Daedra."

The innkeeper shot me a look that was mostly derisive, with a good few parts of uncertainty and fear mixed in. "You're saying daedra are attacking the city? Through a gate?"

A nod. "A gate to Oblivion outside the city walls."

I frowned. "That's–"

Something crashed against the door. We flinched, but nothing more came. The terrified man flung himself away, babbling, "Oh gods, oh gods," under his breath.

"Pull yourself together, man," the innkeeper snapped. "You'll frighten the children."

"Don't know about them," I murmured, moving closer, "but he's scaring the shit out of me."

"Aye," the innkeep said softly. "And me. You heard of owt like that, friend?"

"Fuck no. Gates to Oblivion aren't possible, from what I've heard."

"Who knows what's possible or not these days, with the Emperor dead." He shook his head. "Bad times. Bad fucking times."

"Brennan! Watch your language." His wife had returned with a generous measure of brandy. The baby had gone, but a boy of about seven now followed in his mother's wake, his jaw jutting and determined. He regarded me with solemn challenging eyes, trying not to let me see how terrified he was, only that he was ready to fight, to protect his mother. A knot formed in my throat, and I looked away.

"I'll go," I said, "see if I can't figure out what's going on."

I half-expected one of them to protest. None of them did. I think by the time I was out on the streets with the door closed behind me, they'd forgotten I was ever there.

~o~O~o~

Tendrils of smoke coiled up against a sky illuminated by fire. I tasted acrid flakes of ash on my tongue, and the warm air drew a sulphurous stink through the streets. A fire, I thought as I followed the voices of the crowd heading towards the southern gates to flee the city, that's all it is. And if it was a fire I might be able to help.

A crowd gathered near the southern gates, pushing and shoving, and a guard trying to press people back, the smell of sulphur thick in the air. Over the top of the wall, I could see the crackling flames, could feel the seething heat beating against my cheeks, the air so hot and dry it scorched my throat.

 _Run._

The first I knew of it was a scream. The crowd surged like a tide, swelling backwards. A guard was bellowing at the top of his lungs, but his voice was lost in the chorus of screams that had broken out. I backed away, jostled by the crush of the crowd, and then I froze.

Something came over the top of the wall, something vast and insectile, with a single burning eye that seemed to fix on me. Someone screamed again, the sound ripe with frantic terror, and the crowd surged in panic around me.

The explosion ripped the world apart, knocked me from my feet.

I hit the cobbles hard, lay dazed for a moment or two, then rolled up into a protective ball as boots stamped around me. I shuddered, then sensed something vast nearby.

The needle-sharp point of a massive segmented leg speared down into the dust and rubble inches from my face. I flinched, and rolled into a ball, surrounded by a steady heat, the whirring thrum of machinery, a coppery acrid smell, like burning hair. Above me swiftly passed the vast segmented body, unaware of my presence, and then it was gone, rippling up the side of a building and over the roof like a centipede. As it vanished out of sight, I rolled to my feet, gasping for breath.

Part of the wall, Imperial fortifications that should have stood strong for another couple of hundred years, had been ripped away. Beyond the wall a swirling mass of fire rippled like gauzy curtains, as something pushed through.

 _Many things._

"Oh gods."

Beside me a guard lay slumped motionless on the ground. I shook him. His chainmail armour was so hot to the touch it scorched my fingers and I snatched my hand away, saw too late that his head sat at the wrong angle. He'd been flung from his feet with such force his neck had been broken.

I heard bellowing near the wall and lifted my head, saw through the smoke the remaining guards rallying. The air was filled with smoke and ash, my eyes stinging as I set my hands against the soot-stained stones. The dremora were coming, swarming in through the gate. Their faces were blue-gray, with eyes like shards of obsidian, empty as the eyes of sharks. The light of the flames gleamed on black-and-scarlet armour, ebony tempered with their own kind's heartsblood.

The guards that stood their ground against the flood of demons from Oblivion were hacked down in the first wave. An axe bit deep into a throat. A sword was driven up beneath a steel plate helmet. And behind the first wave of dremoras, a second wave came through: a thousand hunched little creatures, which scampered, clinging to the walls and piles of rubble. They had stunted bodies dressed only in tattered loincloths, sharp teeth, hands wreathed in fire. And more: terrifying creatures with the torsos of alluring women and the fat, bulbous abdomens and scuttling legs of monstrous spiders.

One of the guards had broken and fled, scrambling through the rubble towards me. One of the stunted things flung a fireball at him with deadly accuracy, and the flames enveloped him, sending him to the ground, thrashing and writhing. I turned back to help him, gagged at the mingled stink of roast pork and scorched hair that hit the back of my throat. A demon came towards him, but its merciless black eyes were fixed on me and when it reached the writhing man, it stepped over him and kept on coming, readying its blade.

I turned and fled, ran blindly and desperately through the streets, until the confusion and noise of other people – other human beings – drew me to rejoin the crowd, streaming through the city towards the smaller north-eastern gate.

I passed the inn where I'd spent part of the night, and twin fists of terror squeezed around my heart and my throat as I saw it had been reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. I thought of a squalling baby, a protective boy clinging to his mother, then pushed the memory away. They'd got out, I told myself. Realised the fire was spreading and sought safety in the streets. Only a fool sheltered in his house while a city burned.

We passed through the square where I'd once danced with a lovely woman with skin pale as milk several lifetimes ago. I'd been several men since then, and not one of them perfect. A child's tin legionnaire had been dropped into the mud and trampled over.

My head stung where I'd struck it against the stones, and too stunned to think clearly I clung to one thought: _safety in numbers._

Yeah, right.

Over the top of the wall of the arena came the crawling thing. Away from the fire of the gate, I could see it more clearly now, its massive segmented body, its head with its single raging eye of fire, which contained no intelligence, only the will to destroy. The eye was surrounded by hooked appendages, which opened out, unfurling like petals. Panicked bodies slammed into me. Someone gripped my shirt, breath shallow and too fast, eye glazed as he stared up at the creature. He gave a choked-up little laugh at the sight. "I'm dreaming," he said and laughed again. "None of this is real." He turned his lost gaze on me, pleading. "How can it be?"

The heat was building. The rippling flames of the eye were hypnotic, so bright it hurt my eyes, like staring directly at the sun. The rest of the city, the world, had gone dark, and there was nothing but that eye, and the sweltering, steadily rising heat. A ripple swept down along the segmented body and it reared back, rising up like a snake about to strike.

"Everybody back!" I roared. "Everybody–"

The crowd broke apart in panic and terror. The man who'd seized me was knocked to his knees, and slammed down again when he tried to stand. The fireball catapulted down into the heart of the crowd. Bodies flung, scattered like broken dolls kicked by a spoiled child.

I gripped the man's shirt, and hauled him to his feet. Someone barged into us as he babbled his thanks. The crowd surged west, then banked like a flock of birds when the crawler scuttled down the side of the arena and into the street, blocking the street to the west. The heaving mess of people pushed and shoved and screamed, ripping at each other as it tried to turn back the way we'd come.

Coming up the street the way we'd come, through the smoke and clouds of thick choking dust, came dremora, more than I could count, a wall of remorseless hacking blades and bloodied armour. One twisted voice rose above the roar and screams, fuelled by hatred.

" _Cower, mortals_."

Trapped between flames and demons, the crowd broke, scrambling for the buildings that lined the street. Another fireball exploded behind me with a surge of hot stinking air against the back of my neck. I jerked at a shop door, which was unsurprisingly locked. I snatched up a chunk of rock from the rubble and slammed it into the shutters. The man helped me to tear apart the splintering wood, ripping the shutters away. He glanced back over his shoulder and gave a choking groan as I shattered the glass of the window, knocking out the thickest shard from the frame. Another dremora had come up behind us.

"Fleeing like the worms you are, mortals."

That voice, that godsdamned voice, torn from the bowels of hell. I'll never forget it, so long as I live.

The man elbowed me out of the way in his panic, and hauled himself up through the frame. A shard of broken glass caught on his braies and then in the meat of his thigh, and still in his desperation he wrenched himself through. On the other side he limped to his feet, stared shamefacedly at me a moment, and then he ran.

 _Fucker._

No time for me to do anything but stand and fight now. I turned, sword in hand, looking about as useful as a butter knife compared to the dremora's longsword.

"So, you stand and fight, fool?" it spat at me. "Prepare yourself."

It swung its blade down in a deadly arc. I shifted my stance a fraction too late, and parried with my short sword. The clash of the blades sent a jolt up my arm. My fingers loosened. I clenched them reflexively, and danced back, blocking another swing. Another flash of pain in my aching fingers. Heat gnawed at my back, the screams as the crowd was slaughtered. The music accompanying our dance the wholesale butchery of the people of Kvatch.

My foot twisted on the rubble, and as I stumbled, I kicked dust and stones into the dremora's face, into those empty black eyes. I bought myself only a fraction of a second, but I seized the advantage, and rushed in, drove my blade for the demon's heart.

It moved faster than I could blink, catching my blade in a serrated notch of its blade. One twist of its wrist and my sword snapped like a used-up toothpick.

"You fight bravely, mortal–"

The demon's free hand clamped around my throat. It jerked me off my feet and slammed me, choking and kicking, against the wall like a butterfly.

And up came the pin.

It drove its sword through my gut, deep enough that I felt the shudder along the length of the blade as the tip pierced the wood at my back. The dremora released its grip on my throat, and clamped both hands around the handle of its blade as it twisted it deeper, watching as I sagged, coughed up blood. For a moment it felt strangely painless, and then there was nothing _but_ pain.

"–Yet you die like all the others."

I took a rattling breath. This, I thought, was the point at which a normal man would die.

My voice rasped in the depths of my throat. Puzzled, the dremora lifted its gaze to mine. "I think you'll find," I said, my grating voice barely audible, and the dremora leaned closer to catch my words, "I'm not that easy to kill."

I stabbed the jagged hilt of my broken sword into its face. It screamed, a grating roar of mindless pain and fury. I ground the hilt deeper, then before the dremora stumbled backwards, jerked the hilt free and slashed the ragged steel across its throat. The dremora fell away.

I stared down, stunned by the awful unnatural sight of a sword protruding from my belly. I howled in pain and anguish, toes scrabbling for purchase on the ground, as I worked the blade free. The tip broke free from the wall and I crumpled, the impact with the ground driving the sword deeper. And now there was pain, so much pain I could take only gasping weeping breaths, and my mouth was filled with enough blood to drown a normal man.

My hand slid across cobbles slick with my blood. I shoved myself back onto my side. My breathing wheezed, spasming around the sensation of bubbles popping in the back of my throat. I choked out a prayer to the gods as I curled my hand up and inwards and wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the blade.

"Oh gods, oh gods..." I lifted myself up onto my elbow and, sobbing blindly, worked the blade free. It seemed to last an age, and I kept stopping to gasp, and vomit up more choking blood. Inch by blinding inch, the barbs hooked at my flesh, ripping and tearing every inch of the way, until the blade slipped free, accompanied with various bits of me I would have preferred never to see the metaphorical light of day. I crumpled, weeping into the stones.

" _Fuckfuckshitfuckcunt_."

Gasping, I spat out a mouthful of blood and fleshy meaty clumps I didn't want to think too hard about. Hand clutching at my belly, I rolled to my knees, and then to my feet.

I didn't stay on my feet for long. And I'm afraid to say there are few experiences more ignominious than tripping up on a loop of your own intestines.

The dremora had bled out on the ground. I would have kicked its corpse if I hadn't been too busy trying to stop my innards from escaping. And speaking of innards... I scooped something up from the ground, an unrecognisable slippery chunk of offally flesh that might not even have belonged to me. Stupefied by the pain, I studied it for far too long, then shrugged, and tucked it away into a coil of intestine where it would be safe. Better to have it and not need it, I reckoned, than need it and not have it. Whatever the fuck it was. A bit of liver? My spleen? What _was_ a spleen anyway?

 _Oh gods, I'm losing my fucking mind._

A giggle lurched up out of me and I pressed the back of my free hand against my mouth to hold it back. Inside it kept rising, snorted up through my nose instead. Blood splattered out through my nostrils with a burning sensation in my tear ducts.

"Ow," I said, and giggled again.

Somewhere through the smoke that choked the ruined city streets a building collapsed, drawing me back to my senses, or as close to them as I could manage. With one hand against the wall – the other was far too occupied keeping the ragged wound in my belly closed – I clawed myself back up to my feet.

They'd fucked with the wrong man, by the gods. I was the Gray Fox, and I'd clear Kvatch of every single one of these vile, unnatural creatures, one by fucking one if I had to.

I drew the cowl from my pocket, and put it on, submerged myself in a shadowy world of smoke and fury. I felt them at once, more demons than I could count, their hatred and fury pressing in on me like the heat of the flames against my skin, the choking acrid smoke in my lungs.

They were hunting for survivors, hacking them down without mercy or quarter, and they were coming my way.

Well, the Gray Fox I might have been, but I wasn't a fucking idiot. I ran. Again.

~o~O~o~

Kvatch resembled a scene of devastation from Oblivion itself, a smoking ruin, buildings reduced to piles of rubble and the ground twisted and warped. People's most precious possessions lay abandoned in the streets, twisted and warped by the heat, smoking like coals. And then there were the people themselves... some charred and blackened and barely recognisable as something that had once been alive, or hauled up and put on display, hanged on an outcrop of splintered wood from a fallen beam, dangling like a condemned criminal in the Prison Quarter.

I'd never spent much time in Kvatch, and most of the time I had spent here I'd been drunk. I didn't know the layout near as well as I should. The main gate stood to the south, and still swarmed with demons, but there would be other ways out – a sewer, a secondary gate for animals near the city's western shambles, a guard tower, _something_. But the city was a labyrinth now, and at every turn, I found streets blocked with wreckage. My sense of direction had deserted me, and through the wreathing smoke, I would catch occasional glimpses of a vast burning eye. Every time I thought I might have found a way through I would sense a dremora hunting nearby, or a chittering scamp, or one of those obscene spider-women.

For the first time in my accursed existence, I found myself thanking Nocturnal for the blessing of the cowl.

The wound in my belly wouldn't kill me. Another time, another place, and I might have marvelled at how quickly I healed. My flesh was already knitting together, the gash in my belly scabbing over, although it jarred in agony with every step. Better not to think about the stomach-churningly unpleasant sensation of pushing my guts back inside me where they belonged with hands black with filth. I was alive and (mostly) whole. That'd do.

At the north-eastern edge of the city, past the ruined pit of the arena, I met the Dunmer. It wasn't the friendliest of meetings, since on my hail he tried to kill me, but I could forgive him that, given the situation. I'd been so relieved to see another living soul, I'd scarcely given him any warning before lurching out of the shadows at him, and one-eyed and emaciated though he was, he moved fast. No doubt the effect of the skooma – he had the hollow cheeks of an addict, and there was a twitchiness about him that suggested he'd recently partaken of the drug. If it hadn't been for that, I think he might have succeeded in cutting my throat – he moved like a man well-used to such an action – but the skooma had made him clumsy, as did the bundle of papers he clutched under his elbow, well-wrapped in a length of oil cloth.

"Your pardon, sera," he said, as I tightened my grip around his wrist and eased the dagger away from my throat. He seemed to be talking through a mouthful of gravel. "I thought you one of those foul creatures."

"I'm afraid I'm a foul creature of an entirely different kind."

His one-eyed gaze flitted up to the cowl and then down to my belly and the fresh blood soaking my shirt. The effort of blocking his attempt to slash my throat had ripped open my scabbing wound.

"Are you injured?"

"Naught that's like to kill–" I broke off, at the sensation of movement through the street, the crunch of rubble at the edge of my hearing. I caught hold of him and pulled him back into the gloom. The dremora passed us, so close we could have reached out and touched it. Its black armour glowed red like a smouldering coal. The metallic smell of blood in the air was almost enough to cover the reek of skooma and unwashed skin that clung to the Dunmer's body. The dremora's boots crunched on the rubble as it paused, the blood streaking its armour shining wetly in the light of the fire. Beside me the Dunmer trembled, clinging to his package as if it was a baby that might be about to cry. When the dremora vanished around the corner, I exhaled.

"It's gone. We're safe for the moment." I caught hold of the Dunmer's arm. "Have you any idea how to get out of this damned city?"

"The southern gate–"

I shook my head. "One of those portals has opened up outside. I've tried circling back, but there's too many daedra."

" _B'vek_." He closed his eyes, the scarred empty pit of his right eye puckering up, and pressed his hand to his mouth. "I've heard some people managed to get to safety in the chapel. They may still be holed up there. What's left of the guard, perhaps?"

Gods, I hoped so. I lifted my gaze to south, where the chapel's spire was barely visible through the wreathing smoke. "The chapel." I considered, then gave a nod. "As good a place as any. Let's do it."

We moved through the streets, and still, although he knew the city better than I did, we took far too many wrong turnings, and had to backtrack too many times. The north-west plaza around the castle was thick with daedra, swarming like lice on a crotch that hadn't seen the attentions of an apothecary in far too long. It seemed survivors might be holed up there; no doubt the guards had fallen back to the castle to protect the count. It was a kind of bitter relief to think that the Dunmer and I weren't the only remaining survivors in the entire city, but the gods only knew how long that would last.

Another dead end. Another charred pile of rubble blocking our path. I tried to clamber over it and felt the whole wretched structure quiver beneath my weight. The Dunmer caught hold of my arm and jerked his head. "There's an alley this way. It's a bit of a maze, but it should lead us through."

Wishful thinking.

The alley was filled with the bodies of the dead, piled three deep. Some hacked apart, others burned, some trampled to death when their friends and neighbours panicked. They'd tried to flee down the very same alley, only to find it blocked off by rubble. More corpses under the rubble, crushed when they tried to climb it and brought the whole lot on top of them. Some had died quickly, but by the looks of the fingernails of one man whose hips had been crushed by a falling beam, not all of them. He'd died trying to claw himself free. I stared at the body, then at the Dunmer, slumped against the wall, up to his knees in corpses.

 _How_ , I wondered, stunned at the carnage. _How could the city have fallen so quickly?_

"Perhaps," the Dunmer grated out, "we should just hide."

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut as I thought. "A root cellar somewhere, barricade it closed, wait it out." My fist slammed into the wall behind me in sudden fury. "Godsdamn! How much longer can this last? Where's the fucking legion? What the fuck do I pay my taxes for, that's what I want to fucking know?"

The Dunmer buried his face in his hands. "I've never paid taxes in my life."

"Well, nor have I. But that's besides the point."

He dropped his hands and stared at me. A snort of laughter escaped his nose and he clapped his hand over his mouth, tears squeezing up from his remaining eye as his shoulders shook. He dropped his hand and took a breath, opened his mouth to say something more.

A woman screamed.

"Oh gods." I squeezed my eyes shut. "What now?"

We waded back through the silted tide of the dead, out into the street. It was a row of houses, people's homes now reduced to ruins, with decorative flowers burned away and the caved-in doorways like missing teeth. The scream rang out again and I saw a flash of movement at one of the upper-storey windows, like someone clawing at the frame to escape and being hauled back. Then nothing.

Inside all was chaos, furniture upturned and belongings and food scattered across the floorboards. An Altmer child crouched at the bottom of the stairs, and she flinched away at our entrance, her eyes burning amber in the light of the flames that seemed in from outside. She stared at me blankly when I greeted her. Her face was as blank and emotionless as a death-mask.

From upstairs, a loud thump. A crash of toppling furniture. A noise that sounded like an animal in pain.

Oh gods, I didn't want to go up there.

I couldn't do it. And yet I couldn't _not._

"Help the girl," I said, hollowly, but the Dunmer was already by her side, whispering to her in his rasping voice. I took the steps two at a time, praying I wouldn't be heard.

They were in the bedroom.

The dressing mirror had shattered, splintered shards of glass littering the floor. A dremora was raping a half-conscious Altmer woman, sprawled face-down across the bed. The spikes of the demon's gauntlet dug into the flesh of her throat, as it lost itself in violent rutting movements. Its black eyes flared at the sound of my boots crunching on the broken glass. Too late.

I gripped its hair, jerked its head back, and cut its throat.

I hauled it away from the Altmer, tugged her skirts down to hide her bloodied thighs, and rolled her over as gently as I could, grimacing at the wound in her chest. She was beyond any help I could give her. I called out in a grim voice to the Dunmer, and he appeared in the doorway.

"Sera–"

"For fuck's sake, don't let the girl see," I hissed. He froze, taking in the woman on the bed, and pressed the girl behind him. "Can you heal?"

He shook his head.

Fuck. _Fuck_. The woman took a gasping breath, and I knelt on the bed beside her. She flinched at my touch, letting out a soft, muted sob until I whispered something to her, my voice soothing. I told her she would be fine now, that her daughter – I assumed the little Altmer girl was her daughter – would be safe, that I'd look after her, protect her, make sure she escaped the city safely. She gave a last rattling breath and died. And I pressed the back of a shaking hand against my mouth.

The Dunmer had retreated downstairs. His gaze lifted to mine as I came down the steps, filled with a question he couldn't seem to articulate. I gave the slightest shake of my head and he shuddered.

The Altmer child had slumped against the wall, and I hunkered down, bringing my gaze on a level with hers. She'd retreated somewhere inside herself, searching for somewhere she knew was safe. I don't even know if she heard me, "Your mama's gone on ahead," I told her. "She's waiting for you at the chapel. She sent us to come get you. Do you understand?"

Whether she understood me or not, I don't know, but she let me take her hand and followed us meekly enough.

~o~O~o~

I set my boot against the ledge of the shutter and dropped to the street, then turned and reached up. The Altmer had regained some of her wits, but not nearly enough, her eyes too bright and glazed, her face too pallid. She looked more like a snow elf of old than an Altmer, especially beside the scrawny Dunmer with his ash-darkened skin. He broke off trying to persuade her to drop down after me, and glanced back over his shoulder into the bowels of the ruined house. When he looked back, terror flashed in his single eye. "They're coming up the stairs."

 _Shit._ "Throw her down."

He stood frozen for a moment, every muscle in his body knotted with tension. He wanted to run. I knew because I felt the same urge myself, to turn my back on the two of them and save myself. It choked my mind as the smoke choked my lungs, because if this was happening here, it might very well be happening in Anvil too. For an instant, I couldn't breathe, overwhelmed by the memory of the Altmer woman, raped while she lay dying.

Only it was Millona, and the bed our marriage bed.

Above the girl screamed, bucking and fighting as the Dunmer gave up on persuasion and picked her up and dropped her over the edge. He was stronger than he looked.

I caught her, and even though she was a skinny little thing the impact sent a wrench of agony through my belly, enough to tear a cry of pain from me. I gave a hitching sob, and her hands clawed at me. I rested my hand on her head, forcing my breathing to slow. "It's all right," I whispered, setting her down. She clung to me. "You're safe now. I've got you, little one."

From above came a cry of terror. The Dunmer's silhouette was highlighted against the smouldering sky. He turned, one hand thrown up, to ward off the dremora behind him. A sword rose, and with it a crack of unfamiliar magic that made my throat spasm.

The Dunmer made a startled noise, not one of fear or agony, but of surprise. He flung himself backwards and the bade swept, missing him by scant inches. He landed hard on the stones, and I reached down and hauled him to his feet.

More dremora, one in black robes with gathering flames in its hands, readied themselves to jump. I drew my sword. "Take the girl. Get her to the chapel."

"Sera–"

"Fucking do it!"

The first of the dremora jumped down, only for me to drive the blade of my sword clean through its throat. I jerked it free in a spray of black blood and roared at the others, "Which of you cunts is next?!"

Too much noise.

The Altmer screamed, the first sound I'd heard her make. Magic crackled at the edge of my mind, rising the hairs on the back of my neck, as I looked up and saw another demon emerging from a nearby street. Its blade swung around in a lazy arc and hacked into the Dunmer's throat, deep enough to bury itself in his spine.

The dremora above me snarled in triumph, and thrust its gauntleted hand into the air. Something was clutched in its fist. The Dunmer's body spasmed. The air crackled as something flooded from his body. It smelled of ash and blood.

 _That's his soul_ , I thought, numb, terrified. _That's the scent of the poor bastard's soul._

Behind us the Dunmer dropped. His precious bundle of papers had burst apart. The wind caught at the pages, scattering them like blossom in spring. I snatched up the Altmer and fled.

~o~O~o~

Outside all might be blood and fire and slaughter, but inside the Chapel of Akatosh the sense of still watchfulness pervaded, despite the taste of ash and heartache on the air. Huddled groups of townsfolk huddled together for safety and comfort. Some were silent and numb, others wept.

As I slumped against the wall, the little Altmer girl's hand tightened on mine. My lungs spasmed, and I hacked up a wad of blacked phlegm and spat it out. It left its acrid taste in my mouth.

Brandy. Ale. Wine. _Anything_ to wash that taste from my mouth.

 _Just one drink_ , I thought, and then I'd go. Slip on the cowl and flee the city. Fight my way out if I had to, because if this was happening in Anvil too...

Yet another thought I couldn't bring myself to finish.

I drew in a breath, and pushed myself away from the wall. "You'll be safe here," I told the girl, trying to prise her off me. Her eyes were bright with terror, her fingers biting into my wrist. She was just a child. Just a damn child. I had to fight to stop myself from ripping her away from me. I needed a drink so, so badly, and I was too tired and in too much pain to deal with any of this. I didn't have the time or the inclination to play nursemaid to some brat of an Altmer even if she had seen her mother brutalised in front of her.

She wasn't my problem. She couldn't be.

"Godsdamnit, let _go_."

A Redguard woman with the look of a healer hurried towards us. Blood stained her hands and her dress, and her gaze darted cautiously up to me as she squatted down and stared into the girl's glazed eyes. "Where's her mother?"

 _Dead_.

"I don't know. Please can you take her? I'm no good with children."

The girl clung to me, fingers knotting in my shirt as the woman tried to coax her away. She fought us, protesting without words, only a broken keening in the back of her throat. By the end, I wasn't even trying to be gentle; I just wanted her away from me. And finally she threw herself away with a flash of betrayal in her eyes, and buried her face in the Redguard's side. The Redguard ignored her and stared at me.

"Is it bad out there?" she asked.

I thought about the Dunmer, of the sound he'd made as his soul was ripped from his body and for once I couldn't bring myself to lie. I didn't say anything and her gaze flitted to how I was standing, the blood on my clothes. "Are you injured?"

"Only some burns and cuts. I'll live."

She jerked her head towards the back of the chapel. "I'd help, but I've exhausted my magicka. You should see Brother Martin. He should be able to... to..." She trailed off, losing her train of thought. Her eyes rested on the doors. Wondering perhaps how long they could hold out for against the flood of fire and slaughter streaming from Oblivion.

I excused myself, turned my back on them both, and moved along the aisle towards the priest.

He seemed so intent on the altar to Akatosh that even I thought him praying at first. His interlaced fingers were locked in a gesture of prayer, but his eyes were grim and filled with the quiet fury of a man who has discovered how helpless he truly is. Whatever he was doing, whether he was seeking communion with his god or not, it couldn't be described as prayer.

As I drew closer, he lifted his head, glanced at me. His eyes were a startlingly unexpected shade of blue. "Can I help you, my friend?" he asked. "Do you need a healer? I'm afraid I can't offer you much more than that right now, but if you're injured–"

"I have some burns," I said. "A wound in my belly too, but nothing that can't wait if you're busy."

His mouth tightened. "You weren't interrupting anything. I wasn't praying."

"I know."

A bitter smile twisted his lips as he turned his gaze on me. He didn't speak but he held a question in his eyes.

"I've been where you are," I said quietly, and lowered myself onto a pew with a wince of pain. "I know what it's like to ask the gods for something and have them ignore you. I know what it's like to beg for answers and not get an answer." I studied him. Lines of exhaustion were etched around his eyes. He looked close to collapse. "My injuries can wait. You needn't trouble yourself, Brother."

He ignored me and pushed up my sleeve with practised care. He paused over the burns, already starting to heal thanks to the magic of the cowl, but he didn't question how such a thing could be possible, only placed his warm sweating palms over my skin.

The shivering glorious rush of healing magic surged up my arm. I caught my breath, biting back an involuntary moan of pleasure, my other hand tightening on the edge of the pew. It ebbed quickly, and I cleared my throat awkwardly as he pulled away leaving the skin on my arm fresh and pink and tender to the touch.

His attention had already shifted to my belly and the wound there, which had scabbed over again.

"You ought to be dead, my friend," he said grimly. "No man could survive a wound like this, not even a master of Restoration."

"I got lucky. And I'm quick with a healing potion."

He set his hands against my belly. I opened my mouth to tell him not to and then I couldn't speak from the sheer joy of it. Heat spread through my abdomen, silvery threads of pleasure shooting from my belly button to my groin and working their way up underneath my ribs. It left me rock-hard and aching for more. He discreetly looked away while I shifted myself on the pew, thanking the gods that the Redguard hadn't been the one to heal me. She'd have been used to that sort of reaction – healers always were – but it would have been an extra layer of embarrassment that I could have done without.

"What did you ask the gods for?" he asked, suddenly.

"I'm sorry?"

"You said you prayed to them. Begged them for something." But then his eyes darkened. "Actually, that's none of my business. It's been a trying night. Forgive me."

"It's fine. It's just that I'm not... I'm not really used to people asking me questions these days." Tears prickled at my eyes. I blinked them away. "At first I prayed because my wife and I were trying for a baby."

"Ah." He looked relieved at the shift in the conversation towards safer, more domestic ground. "You're married?"

"I was. I'm not sure what I am these days." Outside something exploded. Loud enough to make everyone in the chapel flinch. A couple of children started to wail, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Gods, I need a drink."

"Now that's one thing I'm glad to say I might be able to help with." He rose, and crossed to a bedroll tucked behind the altar. "I'm afraid there's only some ale. I hope it'll do."

"Oh, it'll do. Thank you."

"I'm Martin. Brother Martin if you must, but I think I'd just prefer Martin. And you..."

I sighed. "Lord Corvus Umbranox, erstwhile Count of Anvil. I don't suppose you've heard of me...?"

And although I knew it was pointless I couldn't stop myself from studying his expression, searching for a flash of recognition in his startlingly blue eyes. Nothing, of course. Only that politely blank, faintly puzzled look. "I'm sorry, I don't think... I didn't catch that."

"Doesn't matter. Thanks for the ale."

We drank in silence, watching the survivors. I was thinking about the layout of Kvatch, wondering which way I should go, whether my best chance was to aim for the gate to the south where the Oblivion Portal still burned. "I've been praying for strength," he said quietly. "They keep looking to me, these people. I was their priest. They want guidance. They want to know the gods are looking out for them. And I don't know what to tell them."

"You could always lie."

He gave a soft bitter laugh. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a liar, my friend."

"No?" I bared my teeth at him. "And here I was thinking you were a priest."

We talked for a while longer of matters of no consequence and then we both fell, as if by mutual agreement, into a brooding silence. I thought of what I'd seen outside, the devastation wrought on the city, and my mind turned to Anvil. In my imagination, I saw the waters at the edge of Anvil Bay stained red with blood, reflecting the flames as the city burned. I swallowed the rest of the ale and stood, shaky on my feet.

Martin stirred and looked up at me.

"I have to go," I told him.

"'Go'?" He blinked, as if he didn't quite understand my words. His gaze swept around the chapel, over the huddled survivors of Kvatch. "Go where? You said yourself the city is in ruins."

"I have a wife, remember? She's in Anvil. And if this is happening here, who's to say it couldn't be happening there too?"

A dull fury was spreading over his features. "You mean you're fleeing the city," he said, his voice cold. "You're abandoning the rest of us to die–"

I swung back towards him. "I wouldn't have put it like that," I snapped, "but yes, if you like."

"If the daedra break through those doors–"

"If they manage that then everyone's fucked. Not like I'll be able to make a difference in the long run." I tamped down my rage, swallowed it down along with my shame. "I'm sorry, Martin, I truly am. But if there's a chance my wife is in danger..."

" _Please_. There's few enough who can still fight, and fewer still who still have enough of their wits about them to make a difference. I'm begging you–"

"I'm sorry."

"I can't do this on my own!"

He'd raised his voice as I turned my back, enough to draw the attention of the Redguard healer. Her eyes flicked towards us, over the tops of the heads of the newly minted orphans clustered around her. I met her gaze, then started towards the doors without looking back at him.

"Damn you," he spat, too low for anyone but me to hear.

"I'm afraid you're a little late, Brother Martin, since I'm already damned, but I appreciate the sentiment. And oh, by the way..." I paused to glanced back at his face, his expression torn and helpless with terror and confusion and fury. In the days and weeks to come, after I'd learned who he truly was and what he'd done, I'd wish I hadn't. "Thanks for the ale."


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N: So here it is, the final chapter and epilogue. Thanks to tafferling for betaing, and to you for reading. Seriously, I had a blast writing it, and am still a little astonished that I managed to write something as ridiculously long as this. At 300k words it's easily the longest thing I've ever written.**

 **If you've enjoyed it, I would be thrilled if you left me a comment to let me know. I also welcome constructive criticism.**

 **Please note that there are some references to rape in this chapter.**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty-Five**

" _I suppose there is no hiding it from you. No hiding. What a joke! My whole life is hiding. Everything in that document is true. My identity cannot be known. In fact I just told you my true name twice, but I bet you don't remember it. You and I have even met before, when I was not wearing the cowl. To your clouded memory he and I are two different people. My own family doesn't even know me. I would give much to be rid of the Gray Cowl and its curse._ "

– A stranger

Nine thousand people at best count died in Kvatch, despite its walls, despite its Watch, despite the Legion. There were far too few survivors. A small number managed to escape the city before things got really bad, along with a remnant of the guard. Led by Savlian Matius, they rallied when the gate to Oblivion was closed and retook the city, And there were others: the survivors in the chapel, and a handful of lucky souls who had managed to keep themselves hidden. Not many. Not nearly enough.

Very few of the survivors had seen more than glimpses of that vast insectile thing that had ripped through the walls as easily as if they were made of gingerbread. A siege engine, but like no siege engine that any mortal man could have envisaged, with a seeming life and mind of its own, fast and deadly and agile.

When I reached Anvil and confirmed it was unthreatened, and that my wife was safe, I made my report. I set down in detail everything I had seen, sealed it with the stamp of the Count and Countess of Anvil, and had the castle mage deliver it as a matter of urgency to the Elder Council. Whether they would believe it or not I had no idea, but once the letter was gone, my strength deserted me. I found the castle wine stores, began to drink and kept on drinking well into the morning of the next day, when a sudden commotion in the Great Hall told me that the news from Kvatch had finally hit. I had outrun it.

In the days that followed, rumours and whispers dominated. 'Why Kvatch?' people asked. 'Why there?' And gradually one rumour began to grow currency: that Uriel Septim VII had a bastard son, a potential heir, who had lived in Kvatch. People loved to cling to hope, and this rumour had a ring of truth to it. He had form, after all, our dirty old goat of an Emperor, and bastard children are a bit like ants: where there's one, there's fifty.

The rumours whispered that the bastard had been pulled from the jaws of death by an agent of the Blades, and was now kept safe and in seclusion, while the Blades marshalled their resources in hope of striking back against the forces that assailed us.

Millona might know for certain, but I had other concerns. Many of the survivors of Kvatch sought refuge in Anvil. All the orphans, that little Altmer girl among them, were taken in at the orphanage until family could be found to take them. Easy to spot the children from Kvatch when walking past the orphanage's yard when the children played outside – they were the silent ones.

They were a constant reminder of how vulnerable we were. No one had believed stable gates to Oblivion were possible. Could one open up overnight in the marketplace? Or on the docks? Or on the bridge that led to the castle, preventing the townsfolk from seeking refuge there? There were whispers too of that terrifying insectile creature, and since no one knew anything but rumour, many assumed it had been one of the dragons of old, which had taken refuge in Oblivion and so survived the Dragon War. I could have told them otherwise, but I doubt my correction would have brought any relief, so I kept silent. I do know that no sign of it was found in the ruins of the city, so it seemed logical to assume it had escaped back through the Oblivion gate once its task had been accomplished.

I dreamed about it. Every night. The sun would rise and it would be that vast burning eye. Or I was lost in Kvatch, and in the logic of dreams, I would take a turning and find myself in Anvil instead. I drank to keep the dreams away, but even when I was awake, there was no escape. I'd walk the streets and see the Harrowing brought to Anvil, the city I had come to love, those fine pale gray buildings reduced to black-charred rubble, while the lighthouse burned, and Millona– Gods, _Millona_. Some days it was all I could think about: the memory of that smouldering house, the Altmer woman, barely conscious, with the dremora bunching a fist in her hair and wrenching her head back while he raped her.

I'd close my eyes and it wasn't the Altmer I saw, but Millona, her hair matted with blood, her eyes unseeing.

Even the tales of hope didn't help. By now we'd heard all the stories of Savlian Matius, his bravery in the face of overwhelming odds and the talk of how he deserved a title. There was even talk even of making him the Count of Kvatch if a suitable heir amongst the Goldwine family could not be found, because he had stayed when many others had fled. He'd held the barricades and beat the daedra back until reinforcements arrived. With little more than a handful of men he had stormed the castle in the hopes of finding the count alive. A hopeless task as it turned out, and he must have already known in his heart that his lord was dead. And still he fought. For his city. For his lord. For Kvatch.

I tried to imagine Captain Langley marshalling the guards of Anvil in such a way, and failed miserably. Langley didn't even patrol when it was raining. He spent most of his day lazing around the barracks, idly chatting with the other guards, or strolling the gardens of the city on pleasant days. I couldn't see him holding a barricade against a couple of mudcrabs, let alone an army of dremora.

I suppose, utterly useless as he was, I should be grateful to him, because with his help, I 'd finally decided what to do about the problem of Lex.

~o~O~o~

Captain Langley was easy to get rid of. Almost embarrassingly so. I wasn't the only one listening to the stories coming out of Kvatch with unease. In the end, all I really had to do was get him talking in an inn, tell him my tales of what had happened in Kvatch – the devastation, the slaughter, and how I was certain he and his men would do a superlative job if the same thing happened in Anvil. I played the part of a loose-lipped government official (plenty of those around) and implied, fairly heavily, that it was highly likely Anvil might be the next target.

"Ah, never mind." I clapped him on the shoulder, taking note of how green his face had gone. "I'm sure you'll prove yourself every bit the soldier Savlian Matius did, eh?"

I barely even had to bribe him. One blink and he was gone, stumbling over himself in his haste to retire and seek a quiet life in the country. There's honour of a kind in that.

The rest of the matter was handled smoothly. I forged the letter of recommendation and seeded bribes throughout the Imperial City to ensure there wouldn't be too much resistance to Lex's transfer to Anvil, and that his replacement would prove to have a little more common sense where the Thieves' Guild was concerned.

Lex himself was unimpressed, but I had no doubts he would do his duty and protect Anvil and his new countess with his life if necessary. I wish I could say it eased some of my burden of fear, but I still saw Kvatch. Every time I closed my eyes.

~o~O~o~

They're a funny old thing, quests. All that hunting for myriad assorted objects for murky inexplicable reasons. It's almost as if the gods have a thing for scavenger hunts. And here I was setting one of my own with my very own Champion, a little sneak-thief who lied as naturally as breathing.

A book. A scrying stone. An arrow. A pair of enchanted boots.

She'd come through, my little liar. I had to give her that. All the items I needed she had merrily delivered into my possession and been well-rewarded for her trouble. With Savilla's Stone I had scried ahead, seen the obstacles that lay between me and the Elder Scroll, and I swear – I _swear_ – I had every intention of retrieving the Scroll for myself. At least at first, before I came to realise the impossibility of the task. Even when I saw the shot I would have to take with the Arrow of Extrication, I clung to the hope that I might be able to fortify my archery skills through magical means – a potion, perhaps, or an enchanted helm.

Then the Stone showed me the first of the dead and I knew I could never do it.

I am at heart still a coward. I do not claim otherwise.

The Stone too I might have been able to take for myself. I'd been there myself, after all, and knew the corridors and what challenges I might have faced. And I knew too how unlikely I was that I would be able to escape without the Moth Priests being alerted to the theft of the Stone.

 _Shed no innocent blood,_ I'd told my thief, and she had stared at me with the mocking smile of a liar recognising a fellow liar. "However, there is no bloodprice for slaying the Stone's guardians, human or inhuman," I said, and only now did something flicker in her eyes. It might just have been the light of the fire.

I tried not to think of the prelate and his kindness, of Brother Michel and Brother Primus with his cackling laugh. And of Jirav and the others, all of them good men, whom I'd very nearly called friends, and each of them would rally to defend the Stone if they needed to.

No innocent blood to be shed. As if the Stone's guardians, the living ones, weren't themselves innocent men.

A book. A scrying stone. An arrow. A pair of enchanted boots. And very soon, perhaps, an Elder Scroll.

But when is anything ever that simple?

~o~O~o~

The gate to Oblivion outside Anvil opened just over two weeks after Kvatch was destroyed. It could be seen from the city walls at twilight, staining the sky red as spilled blood. A chill wind swept in from the north-west, carrying with it the stench of Oblivion. It stained spit and snot black, and it made me dream.

I was so close to freedom I should have been able to taste it, but instead all I could taste was the acrid ash, all I could smell sulphur and the stink of burning meat and rendered fat. The wind in the cold chimney rattled out like the screams of the dead. A fire might have chased those ghosts away, but I couldn't bear to light one.

I left the shack and took myself up to the castle instead. The streets were deserted, unusual on such a pleasant evening when people wanted to enjoy every last scrap of the summertide evenings before the warm weather slipped away. A few souls hurried through the streets towards their homes, barely stopping to greet each other, let alone a nameless stranger. Only one lingered, and I know who it was before I saw his face illuminated by the watchlight: Velwyn Benirus, turfed from the Count's Arms and taking one of his long walks rather than go home. He looked older than his years, his eyes reddened and sleepless. He had the same haunted look as his late older brother.

At the castle I was torn for a moment, already drunk and unable to recall what had brought me there. Finally, I climbed the battlements, and stared out over the city towards the Oblivion Gate. It seemed alive somehow, an evil thing with a mind of its own. It mocked us, a constant reminder of what could happen.

The daedra trickled through in dribs and drabs, sometimes only a handful, at other times a few hundred. Rather than head for the city they'd spread out across the countryside, targeting farmers and travellers, burning smaller settlements and isolated estates. They slaughtered indiscriminately, and unlike bandits they didn't bother robbing the people they murdered for their valuables. And in their wake, like carrion birds picking at the bodies of corpses on a battlefield, came the looters. What the daedra didn't destroy, the looters did, butchering any souls who might have been lucky enough to survive the initial attack to stop them from reporting back.

Millona spared what guards she could to guard the gate, but their numbers were threadbare. They were brave men, loyal to their countess and to their city, even though they knew, to a man, that this was a hopeless task, that any daedra they killed would return to the wastes of Oblivion and survive to fight again. The army of Mehrunes Dagon numbered in the infinite and ours did not. There was no stopping this, no more than there was the possibility of stopping the tide. The men were like a bulwark preventing the floodwaters from rising too far, but one day would come a storm surge so savage that the rising floodwaters would come crashing over the barriers and flood us all.

And then... Oh Gods, and _then_...

Millona, unlike Count Goldwine, had an escape route. She could run. If it came to it she might well lead her people through it to safety, but if she felt running meant abandoning her people still left in Anvil then she might very well choose to stay...

And I found I could not put myself in my wife's head. I was too tired, too weary, and too starved of human contact, with my focus so fixated on my quest to free myself from the curse. I looked at her and saw not the woman I loved more than the world, more than my own life, but a stranger I barely knew.

 _Tell me something, boy. If it came to a straight choice between Millona's life and protecting the people of Anvil, which would you choose?_

 _Millona,_ I had said. _Every time._

At the time I'd meant it. I'd made him a promise, that devious old bastard. That lying fucker, who had gambled away his daughter's happiness, and lost. I'd sworn to make her happy, no matter what, to protect her, no matter what. And instead, I'll let another woman lead me away, not by the cock, but it might as well have been. I had abandoned my wife when she was grieving and in pain. I had wasted a year wallowing in self-pity and drunkenness. I had broken almost every vow that mattered to me, but not this one.

Not this one.

I would protect her. No matter what.

~o~O~o~

The stories of our lives are written on our faces. Joy, sorrow, anger, hatred, love. All emotions leave their tales scrawled behind, and Millona's spoke too much of sorrow, instead of the tale it should by rights have been: one of laughter and joy and love.

Something else I'd stolen from her. Just another entry on the end of a very long list. It came as easily to me as breaking my vows.

I had once sworn I would never return to Millona's chambers unless she brought me there, but what was one more broken vow under the circumstances?

A room filled with the soft sweet perfume of a woman's life, with no hint of a man's sweat or sex or seed to spoil the air. A bottle of wine, and beside it a single glass of perfect fragile crystal. And a potion bottle so small it fit neatly into the hollow of my palm.

I hunkered down, and let two drops of the viscous liquid from the potion bottle drip into the bottom of the glass. In moments, the liquid would evaporate, leaving a trace of fine colourless powder behind. It had no smell, no flavour, and would dissolve the moment liquid hit it to create a potion of unusual strength and potency, which would make the drinker unusually receptive to the instructions of another.

I had enough of the potion to last three days, and after that...

Well, I'd figure that bit out when it came to it.

It seems like a kind of madness to me now, this plan of mine to steal her away, but after all it was only what I had promised her father I would do. It made sense at the time. Sort of.

It eats away at you, the cowl. It chips away at your humanity, as a chisel shears off flakes of stone from a marble statue. What is a man without the warmth of human contact and friendship and love?

Ten years of imprisonment had left me a broken thing, a moth stripped of its wings, crushed and crumpled in a clenched fist. I was half-mad and all-despairing, and I had _promised_. I could see no other way forwards.

Especially not now.

The Oblivion gate had burst open again, scorching the land around it black. This time it hadn't been a handful of daedra, but a small army. They'd overwhelmed the guard, all save a badly burned runner, who crumpled to his knees inside the city walls. They were dead, he'd babbled. Some twenty-six guards, slaughtered where they stood, while the daedra surged outwards like a tide.

I had no choice. All knew the story of Count Goldwine, how he'd led the charge against the daedra before his men had been overcome and they'd been forced to retreat to the castle. Millona was no warrior, but she was Colovian through and through. She wouldn't run. I _knew_ she wouldn't run.

I had no choice. No option other than two drops of poison in a crystal glass, another vow broken. Or so I told myself, although I knew, as I retreated from her chamber with my head down and bitterness flooding my heart, that I lied.

I watched her with Lex, and thought how weary she looked. There was more gray in her hair too, silvery strands that clustered at her temples. Even here I could smell the ash on the air, a fine layer of soot that clung to the clothes and hair and skin. It made it impossible to forget Kvatch, even if I wanted to.

I cradled the potion bottle in my palm, rolled it between my fingers. _You're doing this to protect her,_ I thought. _You have no choice._

"If I could spare the men, I would," she was saying. "What of the gate itself?"

"There's talk from the Fighters' Guild of sending in a contingent of men to destroy it, My Lady."

She lifted her head at that, a momentary flash of hope. "Do you think they can?" And when he hesitated, she reached out and touched the back of his hand. A faint flush darkened his cheeks, and his shoulders tensed. "Please, Captain Lex, the truth."

"I think they're fools." He spoke in a sudden burst, then looked away, his flush darkening. She murmured something I didn't catch, and his gaze flicked up. When he spoke, his urgent voice started low but rose steadily. "With all due respect to the Fighters' Guild most of them are rabble. The Anvil Chapter is better than most, but even so... When people enter those wretched gates they don't emerge in glory. They come out broken or bleeding, or they don't come out at all." He broke off, flinching at the harshness of his tone. "I beg your pardon, My Lady."

She shook her head wearily. "I appreciate your candour, Captain. After all, we can't all be the Hero of Kvatch."

"No indeed."

"And I think you may well be right. I've heard Farwil Indarys led the Knights of the Thorn into a gate several days ago and not a one of them has been heard of since."

Lex snorted. "Ah yes, the Knights of the Thorn."

"I've often thought my brother might have formed a similar brotherhood had he lived," Millona said.

"And a very fine and noble endeavour it would have been, I'm sure," he said quickly. His flush deepened to a dull scarlet when Millona cast a wry glance at him. He cleared his throat. "And the, uh, the guild, My Lady?"

"We have no jurisdiction over how the Fighters' Guild chooses to deploy its men. If they want to attempt to close the gate..." She pinched at the bridge of her nose, then threw up her hands. "My father would be all for taking the fight to Oblivion. My mother, on the other hand, would advise caution."

"And what," Lex murmured, his gaze fixedly on his feet, "would Countess Millona Umbranox do?"

She considered. "Countess Millona Umbranox would attempt to take the middling road, but she is at heart her father's daughter. And you're wrong about the Anvil Fighters' Guild. They may not count the Hero of Kvatch amongst their number, but I know Huurwen fought bravely for Valenwood in the Five Years War, and many of their members are former legionnaires."

Lex grunted.

She paused for a moment, then came to a decision. "Have one of the messengers take word to Azzan. Tell him Castle Anvil will cover the cost of their contract, as well as a full widow's pension for all volunteers, and a most generous bonus should they succeed in closing the gate."

"Understood, My Lady."

"And recall our men from their duty guarding the gate. _All_ of them. We cannot afford to spare a single body, and no matter what we need to keep the bridge clear between the city and the castle. My people must be able to seek refuge here if necessary." And with this last there was a flash of darkness in her eyes, a momentary stab of pain, no doubt at the thought she might be abandoning the people in the countryside, the ones who hadn't yet fled their homes for the dubious safety of the city walls. "Gods damn the middling path," she murmured.

He rose from the table. "If that's all, My Lady..."

"No, there's one more thing," she said, as he turned to go, "Tell me something, Captain Lex, when did you last rest?"

"I can assure you–"

"Because I cannot seem to recall one moment when you have not been on duty since that infernal gate opened. I value your indefatigability, and there's no doubt that the Imperial City's loss has been Anvil's gain, but Anvil is not best served by you working either yourself or your men to the point of collapse. At the moment, all is quiet. That may not be true for long. Make certain you get some rest, and be sure your men sleep in shifts as well."

He inclined his head, and turned to go. He took only a few steps towards the door, then hesitated, and glanced back, still flushing. "May I... may I say something, My Lady?"

She gestured with a wave of her hand for him to continue.

"Could... could the same not be said to you? When did you last rest?" The moment the words were out of his mouth, he grimaced as if he instantly regretted them, and stumbled over his tongue in an attempt to take them back. "I only meant... I beg your forgiveness, Your Grace. I didn't mean to presume..."

"Not at all, Captain." She offered him a weary sad smile which quickly faded. "You're absolutely right, of course. You know, there are times when it feels as if I haven't had a decent night's sleep in... well, almost a decade."

I'm not sure she realised when she had said, but Lex had. There was a weight of meaning in the look he gave her, a veritable storm in his eyes, as much as he tried to hide it from her by quickly looking away.

I knew what sort of man he was. I'd seen the Breton romances he kept by his bedside, stylised tales of honourable impoverished knights yearning for fair damsels in distress, of cruel husbands and love tokens, of heartache endured by star-crossed lovers, and of honour above all.

(There's a certain irony that these stories of honourable men come from _Daggerfall_ of all places. We Imperials might have a reputation for treachery and cloak-and-dagger machinations, but the truth is the national character of the average Imperial owes more to the cheerfully lazy corruption of Decumus Scotti than to the Wolf Queen. Even the most elaborate act of treachery, which in Cyrodiil would inevitably become the stuff of history, in the petty kingdoms of Daggerfall would merely be the events of a particularly dull wet Tirdas afternoon.)

Lex was nothing if not predictable. And even if she was a decade older than him, my wife was still lovely, abandoned by her disreputable rake of her husband, but nobly struggling on regardless, inexplicably loyal to him despite how he had betrayed her. No fucking wonder he would fall in love with her.

I'd expected that.

What I hadn't expected, however, was the lingering, speculative look Millona gave him when he turned away, and the smile that touched her lips for a moment before she brought her hand up to her mouth to conceal it.

Now that I _hadn't_ seen coming.

 _Oh_ , I thought, dazed. And then, because that didn't seem quite enough: _Bugger_.

 _What the fuck am I doing here?_

I dropped my gaze to the bottle in my palm. The bottle that had taken me a small fortune in bribes to procure from the sort of man I would have beaten to a pulp not so very long before. Most men who purchased potions such as this bought them for even less honourable reasons than I had done.

I glanced up at her, and saw she'd returned to her papers. She had to be terrified, but in that moment she looked calm and composed. Almost _happy._

"Godsdamn you," I murmured softly, and it was to Lucar Umbranox that I spoke, that fucking bastard who'd gambled away her happiness, and for no other reason than he'd thought me easy to manipulate (Armande had been right about that). And I'd been lazy enough to let him, so long as it fit with my own selfish reasons.

If I did this, if I came between Millona and her duty to Anvil, it would be as irrevocable and irreversible as if I'd crawled into her bed in those early terrible years of the curse and raped her in all but name. She might forgive me many things, but not this.

And I couldn't do it. I _couldn't_.

 _Well_ , I thought, _that's that_. I might have preferred someone other than Lex, of all the godsdamned people, but he was a good man, an honourable man. No doubt it would take him some persuading to get him into bed with her, but he'd succumb eventually, I had no doubt of that. I'd learned to have faith in the wickedness of my wife.

I spoke before I realised I was going to, my voice cracked and hoarse. "He's a good man."

Whether she heard me I don't know. She didn't react, but that faint smile remained and her eyes brighter than I'd seen them in a long time.

"Handsome, too." I dropped the bottle on the floor and crushed it like a beetle beneath my boot. "Certainly more handsome than I am now. I'll wager if you ever did see me again, you'd be sorely disappointed." I sighed. "Funny how things work out, eh?"

Back to her room I went to toss the glass out of the window, and when the Fighters' Guild sent seven of their best mercenaries into the Oblivion Gate, I went with them.

Our late Emperor spent ten years of his life imprisoned in Mehrunes Dagon's desert of rust and wounds. He claimed he has no memory of those years, that he remembered it only as a series of waking dreams.

I have seen the Deadlands. Kvatch was a harbinger only, an echo of what might be.

I have seen those desolate wastes, where the frozen air is thick with ash, and the land torn apart with jagged struts of decaying metal. Tidal oceans of lava lap against beaches formed by flakes of rust and shards of glittering glass, watched over by pods of meat, flesh and skin and bones reshaped like the Ayleid flesh-sculptures of old. They tremble and pulse with the beat of a still-living heart.

Of the six men and two women who entered hell through that portal of freezing fire, only two emerged. Gasping at the clean air, I clung to the Bosmer woman, who gripped in her hand the sigil stone that had kept the gate open. Both of us were broken almost beyond repair.

No man could forget that corner of Oblivion, although he might well wish to. A liar knows a liar.

Waking dreams, my arse.

~o~O~o~

In a modest house in the Elven Gardens District, I held an Elder Scroll for the first time, rather like an expectant father finally delivered of the newborn baby he'd never expected to actually see. My thief waited restlessly, battered and irritable and impatient, but against all the odds alive.

"I haven't forgotten you," I told her. "You'll receive your reward, all in good time. But first–"

"Fuck me, what _now_?" She rolled her eyes upwards. "I'm pissing knackered. _Sir_."

Damn, I liked her. I threw her a purse of coin – near a full thousand Septims – which she caught and glowered at. "Get some sleep. Celebrate your success, because you've certainly earned it. I need a little time to decipher the scroll in any case. There's no hurry, and I think you'll find your reward worth waiting for."

"I'd better fucking do."

"Here." I worked my wedding ring off my finger, grimacing at how long it took to wiggle it past the swollen knuckle. "Deliver this ring to Countess Umbranox in Anvil. Say nothing about me or about..." I paused, my hand resting on the scroll. The casing felt faintly warm to the touch, as if it had soaked up the heat of the day, "...or about our work here. If she asks, tell her a stranger wanted her to have it."

"Anvil? You want me to go to fucking _Anvil_?" She scowled at me in outrage, and if she hadn't been so completely avaricious and greedy, I think she might have thrown the bag of coin back in my face. "Are you not even going to tell me what my fucking reward is? I've done everything you asked. Pissing creepy blind priests, and ghosts, _and_ zombies. I'm supposed to be a fucking thief, not the Eternal cunting Champion. There was a vampire guarding those useless bloody boots, you didn't pissing tell me that! Fucker bit me. And if it's not you, then it's the fucking Blades ordering me about here and there like a blue-arsed fly. I'm pissing sick of the whole bloody lot of you! Anvil! Fucking _Anvil!_ "

"Finished?" I said, when she'd trailed off.

"Fucksake." She pushed her hand back through her greasy hair. "Yeah, I'm finished." She lifted one trembling finger at me. "Fine. I'll go to Anvil. But it had better be worth it."

"It'll be worth it," I promised, although of that I was by no means certain. "And this is the last thing I will ever ask of you, I promise you that."

"It had better be."

~o~O~o~

And so, over ten years since I'd first donned the cowl, I found myself moving through the Great Hall, unseen and unnoticed, despite the four-foot-long Elder Scroll strapped to my back. Millona was holding court, and the hall was thronged with people, waiting their turn to petition the countess or merely there to flirt or gossip. As my thief approached the throne, holding out my wedding ring, I stood, drawing the Scroll from my back.

It is a strange thing to read a Scroll, particularly a Scroll like Shadow, which had only been partially fulfilled. Only a fraction of the prophecies contained within are fixed upon the indestructible parchment.

It sears the past into my mind. I see every detail, clear as day, of the moment when two thieves steal from a daedric prince: how the colour is leached from the world, the sound of the worshippers' chanting, the rustle of the feathers of the flock of crows and ravens gathered in the trees. The screams of the master's apprentice when the witches tear her apart and left her for the carrion birds.

This happened. This is what is.

But then there are also glimpses of a future that might or might not be: of a man smiling while he buries his knife in the heart of the man he calls brother. The sound of dripping water in the darkness, and a ripe sewer stink. The scuttle of rats and the dead alike. An arrow tipped with poison that will not kill.

These echoes of the past and of the future wring out my mind like a wet dishcloth. It is like trying to read the words of a book reflected in a broken mirror while the mirror tries to read you back. I read about myself reading about myself reading about myself reading about... Well, I think you get the picture.

When I hear the voice speaking I do not at first realise that it is my own. I am so buried in the myriad infinite possibilities contained in the Scroll I have lost myself.

"By the power of the Elder Scrolls, I name Emer Dareloth as the true thief of Nocturnal's Cowl."

The world breaks apart and is remade anew.

~o~O~o~

Afterwards there was the longest silence, empty and aching, as if all around me had turned to stone. I weaved on my feet, shaking, my thoughts in turmoil. My eyes ached as if I hadn't blinked for hours, but I felt no different. Surely I should have felt different.

 _It hasn't worked_ , I thought, despairing. _It hasn't worked._

Millona was the first to move, rising to her feet. She'd gone white, her fist clenched tight around the ring my thief had given her, and she stared at me. Saw me as if for the first time. It felt unreal, a mummery, as if we both were wearing masks.

"The Gray Fox," she said, and her voice shook. "I have been betrayed."

"No, that's–" I broke off, realising belatedly I was still wearing the cowl. I seized hold of it and dragged it from my head. "I am the Gray Fox, but you have not been betrayed."

There was no reaction in her face, only the frozen emotion of shock. _Oh gods,_ I thought, and wanted to sob in job. _It's worked. It's worked._

My hand clenched around the cowl. "I am the Fox, it's true. I'm also your husband." Out of the corner of my eye I could see the guards, confused and unsure whether they should intervene. I doubted they would stay that way for long. "It's me, Millona," I said, taking a step towards her, and then another. "It's Corvus. I've come home."

She stared up at me, trembling, her eyes searching my face. In their depths I saw the recognition I had been longing to see for ten long years. Her lips parted and she whispered my name again, breathless, tasting a word she hadn't spoken in all that time. "Corvus..."

"Yes."

Her voice was barely above a breath, but she remembered me. She remembered me. "Where have you been?"

"Lost in the shadows. Ten years ago I became the Gray Fox and was cursed. 'Whoever wears Nocturnal's cowl shall have his name stricken from history'. I became a stranger, Millona, even to you."

She stared at me, unable, I think, to take it all in.

"I've stood right next to you, and you didn't even know it. I'd try to speak to you, begged you to see me, but you only looked at me, confused. It's taken ten years to find a way to–"

The sound of her hand cracking across my cheek rang out across the Great Hall. My thief sucked in air through her teeth, amused and shocked. Across the room, Lex started forwards, and Millona held up her hand to stop him in his tracks.

"You have broken my heart for a second time," she said, her voice low and fierce. "As if I could allow an infamous criminal like the Gray Fox to become the Count of Anvil. If you try to announce yourself as Corvus, I will deny you. I will deny you before the Elder Council if I have to."

"I don't blame you. Not for one moment. But I'm done with thievery, Millona. Forever. And I really mean it this time." I swung around towards my eavesdropping thief and thrust the cowl into her hands. She stared down at it, then up at me.

"That's my fucking reward?" she hissed. "This hideous cursed bloody thing?"

"The curse has been broken. It's safe to wear, and I think you'll find it useful. It's yours, if you want it, along with the guild. You're guildmaster now–"

"Oh brilliant! More work and pissing responsibility! Hooray!"

"The art of a guildmaster is delegation. Delegation and figuring out how to look busy while other people do all the work." I frowned, and rubbed at my forehead. The world had imperceptibly shifted around me. The realisations of all the things that were different came first in a dripping trickle. Over the days that passed this would grow to be a flood, until it slowed and gradually stopped altogether. "History," I said slowly, "has been altered tonight. Such is the power of Nocturnal's curse that lifting it can alter time itself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If Emer Dareloth had not stolen the cowl, the guild would never have fallen on such hard times. The Fox could only ever act as the guild's figurehead." A commotion across the hall distracted me. I glanced up and saw Lex pushing his way through the gathered crowd. "Go to the Imperial City," I said quickly. "Go to the Garden. I'll think you'll find it's changed a bit. And now if I were you I'd run like bloody fuck."

She ran, with Lex in pursuit, but she was quick. If she let him catch her I'd be sorely disappointed.

Millona had sunk down onto her throne and was staring up at me. None of the tears that had filled her eyes had yet spilled, but I had an awful feeling they would do so later. "Do you think that makes a difference?" she asked, her voice hollow and so low that only I could hear,

I shook my head. _It's done_ , I thought, _and so am I._ "All I know," I said, suddenly struck by a wave of exhaustion so overwhelming and absolute that I wanted to sink down to my knees on the ground, "is that I am free."

~o~O~o~

If you are expecting my wife and I to be suddenly reconciled, dear reader, then I am afraid you will be disappointed, although I rather suspect after reading this tale that you will feel it serves me right.

In many ways I was still a ghost. I would walk into a room, her shoulders would stiffen, her back would straighten, and it wouldn't be long before she'd finish whatever she was doing and leave, stalking past me without so much as a word or a glance. If I spoke to her – and it didn't matter what I said, whether it was a greeting, or a polite request for her to pass the salt at breakfast – her expression would go still. If a direct request, she would capitulate after a few moments of icy silence, but she never said a word. She didn't deny me, didn't go so far as to cast me off. Instead she seemed determined to pretend that I did not exist.

The servants, thrown into baffled chaos by my sudden arrival, followed her lead, although they at least spoke to me.

I mean I deserved it. Of course, I did, but gods, it hurt.

Three days after my return and I'd about had my fill of being a ghost. When I walked into the library and found Millona there, she rose, closed the book she was reading, and moved at once towards the door. I stepped aside and held it open, ready to let her go with nothing more than a greeting that she would return with a cold unspeaking nod.

Instead, I heard myself speak."Millona, wait. Please."

In the doorway she stopped, her posture rigid, her hands smoothing over the skirt of her dress.

"If you want me to go, I'll go," I told her back. "Only say the word and you'll never see me again, I swear it."

There was no response from her for the longest time, only her hands curving into fists. Then she turned around so abruptly I took an involuntary step back. Her face was white with fury. "You place the weight of that decision on me?"

"Millona–"

"You expect me to..." Her rage was too hot for her to withstand for long. She was already trembling, starting to blink rapidly as the tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She rolled her lips inwards and pressed them tight. At the sound of a servant's approaching footsteps she moved past me back into the library. "You say you want an answer?"

 _Gods yes. More than anything. I'm tired of waiting, of being a ghost suspended between worlds._ That was what I wanted to say. Instead I lied. "No," I said, closing the door behind me. "I can wait if that's what you need. It's just... you don't seem to want me around."

"Would you really go, Corvus? If I asked you to. Would you really leave Anvil and never come back or would you stay and spy on me from a distance?" Her voice was numb and hollow. I couldn't read her meaning: I'd long since lost the knack, but this at least was a question I could answer.

"I'd go, and I'd never come back."

She studied me, fingers plucking restlessly at a loose thread on the embroidery of her skirt. "For once that's actually the truth, isn't it?"

"Nothing but." I took a step towards her and she stiffened. I stopped and held up my hands. "I'll wait for your answer as long as I need to, Millona. I owe you nothing less, but–"

"Let me guess," she said bitterly. "You're going to tell me how much you love me. How I'm the other half of your heart, and you can't live without me."

"Would it make any difference if I did?"

"Not really. No."

"Then..." I lifted my hands in a helpless shrug. "I will. If you want me to. The gods know it's only the truth, but I don't think it would help."

"You're right. It wouldn't help. Because you've told me that before, and you still left. You still walked out and vanished and left me waiting for you to come home."

"I know."

"Ten years, Corvus."

"I _know._ "

"Ten years of never knowing if you were dead, or if the gossip was more than just spiteful slander and you really had walked out on me and found yourself a mistress, because I couldn't give you a child–" Her voice broke, her face contorting as the tears she'd been fighting finally overwhelmed her. I couldn't stop myself from taking her in my arms. She flinched, then when I hesitated, pressed closer, and buried her face in my shirt. I wrapped my arms around her, feeling how her body shook. We had both changed so much in the interceding years: me, solid and paunchy and gone to seed, her thinner and slighter, and both of us diminished by everything we'd lost. I closed my eyes and dared to think that this might be my reprieve.

"It had nothing to do with you," I told her quietly.

She stirred against me, "Was there a mistress?" she asked, her voice still numb, "Not that I care, really. I'm just curious."

"Do I really need to answer that?"

Well, of course I fucking did.

I pressed down my cold rage at the gossips and answered her. "There's never been anyone but you, Millona. Not for a long time. No mistress, no lovers, no whores." _None that I'd fucked anyway._

"Not that it matters," she said finally. "Not that it makes a difference." She pulled away from me and looked up. "Because you still _left_."

"I regret it every day that passes."

"And then," she continued, as if she hadn't heard me, "you walk into the Great Hall with an Elder Scroll and that evil cowl and announce yourself as my long-lost husband. In front of _everyone_. How could you, Corvus?"

I closed my eyes. "I needed to be sure it would work. I wasn't at all sure it would."

"You know what they'd say," she said. "If you left again."

"I know exactly what they'd say, and probably better than you. They'd blame me. You've always been blameless in this–"

"The innocent victim," she said, "who was too naïve to realised what a scoundrel she married."

"Exactly! They don't blame you–"

"This isn't about _blame_ , Corvus. Don't you see how it makes me look? You turned me into a fool. They laugh at me behind my back, even if they're pretending to sympathise. Poor Millona Umbranox, what a victim she is. How fine and good and noble, such a pity she cannot keep a husband. Or anything else for that matter."

 _Oh shit._

She set her hand against my chest and pushed. I fought the urge to cling on tighter and dropped my arms reluctantly, letting her go. She took a shaky breath. "You wanted my answer, and here it is: I don't know. And I'm truly sorry if you feel you've had to wait too long before you know whether or not I'll let you crawl back into my bed–"

"That's not why I–"

She shot me a look of fury and I fell silent, clenching my jaw. "It must be frustrating," she said. "I realise how hard it must be for a man like you, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little while longer, Corvus, my dear, because _I don't know_."

~o~O~o~

Weary and drained, I nodded to a passing gaggle of servants, who averted their looks of curiosity, and then burst into a chorus of nervous stifled giggles in the corridor behind me.

He was in the Great Hall, embroiled in a heated argument with Dairihill. He looked as weary as I did, shabby and dishevelled from the long ride, and his dark skin was ingrained with dust and grime. As I came down the stairs, his gaze snapped up to meet mine and he froze for an instant, his mouth dropping open. The steward threw up her hands in frustration when he barged past her to meet me at the foot of the stairs.

"Son of a bitch." Armande clenched his hands into fists, and the thought that he might actually punch me flashed through my mind. "You–"

"Well met, my friend."

"Where the _fuck_ have you been?"

"Closer than you'd think," I said, and gave him what felt like my first real smile in years. "I was–"

Before I could finish he hugged me. A tight breath-choking hug, that would have crushed the air from me if I'd been a smaller man. He smelled of his long ride, of warm leather and the sandalwood scented oil he'd used to slick back his hair. "You bastard," he muttered in my ear, his voice thick with tears. "You fucking bastard. I've missed you."

"Are you crying?"

"So what if I fucking am?" He pulled away, wiping his eyes. The steward still hovered, quivering in outrage. I waved her away. "Damn," he said, "I'd heard you were back, the Count of Anvil returning suddenly and without warning. I mean I heard the rumours, but they didn't register, not until one day I sat up and thought, 'Huh, I wonder how Jack's doing?' And then I swore so loudly, Methredhel almost wet herself." He gave me another look, shaking his head. "You bastard. What the _fuck_ – Things have been weird, Jack. I mean, weirder than usual. These past few years..."

"Ten years," I said, quietly. "And believe me, I know exactly how weird things have been. Come on, let's get a drink and I'll explain everything."

It was a wearying prospect, telling the whole damned story again (and yet here I am, writing it all down in excruciating detail. Funny how things work out). I'd longed to escape from this for so long, and yet it seems my destiny to relive it over and over again. Still, I owed him that much.

"I was there," I told him. "All the time, I was there."

He listened, taking it in and drinking his wine. For myself, I was drinking water and trying not to feel proud as I described the theft of the Scroll and my subsequent release from the curse. "How much do you remember?" I asked.

"Bits and pieces. Not all of it makes much sense, but more's coming back to me every day. For a long time I didn't remember you at all, or I did, but it left me numb. Like something was missing. Only... it didn't matter that it was missing, you know? It wasn't like I cared."

He didn't mean it the way he sounded; I knew that, and still I winced. "Yeah, I know."

"I had a lot to distract me."

"You mean, like a fifty-foot tall Daedric Prince manifesting in the middle of the city and having a knock-down fight with a dragon?"

"Oh, you heard about that, did you?"

I made a face. "The _Black Horse Courier_ 'll print any boring old waffle these days."

He grinned. "Slow news day. Oh, and we have a new guild-master now. I don't know if you've met her..."

"Yeah, I've met her. Serve her well, Armande. She's a fine thief and I owe her everything, including my life."

"They say she was involved with all that Oblivion business, too. Mind you I don't know if I believe her. Methredhel reckons she's mostly full of shit."

"So you and Methredhel..."

His lips twisted. "She's... Y'know. I like her. She's a good thief." He sounded cautious, but I could see a glint of happiness in his eyes, something I hadn't thought I'd ever see again after what had happened to Miaran.

Him and his damn elves. But I was happy for him; he deserved some happiness in his life. I asked after Jobasha, who was doing well, considering the mess in Morrowind, and Min, who had returned to visit his family in the Summerset Isles and got caught up in the chaos there. Alinor had suffered greatly during the Oblivion Crisis, the Crystal Tower left in ruins. I'd received a letter from him a week or so back, and while it had been sparse in information, I knew Min well enough to read between the lines.

His writing was short and to the point, cold and clinical and stripped of any sign of the Min I'd once knew, the Min who had one dragged me halfway across Cyrodiil to crash a drunken orgy, who had sat at the side of a grave of a man he loved and tipped out several hundred Septims worth of fine brandy onto the soil.

 _They have a way of dragging you back. They're good at that._

"And you're back with your wife. How'd you swing that one, you jammy fucker?" Armande said. He was smiling, but that faded quickly when he saw my expression. "Or not?"

"Still hanging in the balance on that one." My voice was weary, the pain as well-hidden as I could manage. "I'm waiting for her to make up her mind whether she'll take me back." _Easy, Corvus. You're sounding bitter._ "I don't blame her. I deserve it of course, and no wonder she cannot decide, but–"

"It hurts."

I stared at the surface of the water, and wished suddenly, desperately for a stronger drink instead. "Just a little."

"Well, you're welcome to come to the Imperial City if she decides... y'know. To stay with me."

"Thank you. It won't be necessary." I drew a breath. "I already know what I'll do if she decides against."

"Oh, you've got it all mapped out already? I should've known." He was smiling again. Not gently. Armande Christophe never did do gentle. "You going to share your plans, or..."

I lifted my gaze from my glass and studied him. "I'll go to Skingrad."

"Why Skingrad?"

"That's where the Shrine of Sanguine is."

His expression froze. It took him a moment to take it in, to run my words through his head and determine that I had in fact meant exactly what he thought I'd meant. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a breath. "Jack..."

"I'm going to swear myself to Sanguine, body and soul."

"Jack, _no–_ "

"I'm done, Armande. I'm old and fat and exhausted and there's nowhere left for me to go. If Millona doesn't want me anymore, and the gods know I won't blame her if she doesn't, then I'm done. If nothing else, at least I'll have a little fun before I drink myself to death. There's been precious little of that this last decade." And there were other, darker, considerations, ones that terrified me.

"So you're going to sell your soul?"

"What's left of it, yes. It's not worth much, I'll concede, but I think Sanguine will accept my offer."

 _Come back when you've leavened, kid._ Well, I'd leavened now, all right. I'd bloated out like over-risen dough.

I'd expected Armande to be angry, but I hadn't expected the heartbreak in his eyes. "You can come to us. You know you'd be welcome."

"And do what, Armande? You're thieves, remember? It won't be long before I end up getting sucked back in to that life, and I _can't_. I will not be a thief again. As if I fucking could be anyway. Look at me. I'd end up a pathetic old man knocking around your house and you'd both be sick of the sight of me before the month was up."

"Have you told Millona? Does she know this is what you'll do if she–"

"No. And she's not going to. Nor will she ever find out."

"If she knew, it might affect her choice."

"Perhaps it might. And then she'll resent me for the rest of whatever passes for a marriage. And I'll never know whether she made her choice because it was what she wanted or if she felt obligated to save me from myself. We both deserve better." My voice hardened; it held the sharp edge of a threat. "I don't want her to know, Armande."

He looked at me, the rapport between us a little stiffer as old dark memories rose up like a wall between us. "Understood, _sir._ "

I flinched. "Don't be like that."

"Then don't use your fucking guildmaster voice on me."

"I won't, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. But she can't know. She can never know." There was another fear gnawing at me: that Millona might know of my plans, and hate me enough to cast me off anyway. That was a heartache I knew I wouldn't be able to bear.

"I planted a man here, you know? The blacksmith. Asked him to keep an eye on her."

"I know," I said, and when he darted a questioning look at me I added, "I was here."

"Right." His lips tightened. "Spying."

I shrugged. "All I had left. Without that connection to the world..."

"What, you would have killed yourself?"

My gaze flicked away. A flash of a memory from that first awful year rose up, me hauling myself up from the floor where I'd fallen, and burying my face in my hands. I'd been past crying by that point, past anything but the empty howling void that had become my heart. Gods, how pathetic I'd been. And how much time I'd wasted in misery and self-reproach.

Armande was thrown by my silence. "Jack..."

"Let's just say," I said quietly, "that I have a lot more scars than I used to and leave it at that."

He stared at me a few moments longer, then swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. And thank you. For keeping an eye on her."

He grunted and shook his head. "An Elder Scroll. A fucking Elder Scroll. Only _you_. And now you're going to throw all that away, for what? Because it hurts. I mean, I get it. I know what it's like to lose someone love. Gods, do I know, but there's got to be a better option than selling off your soul."

"It's not just because it hurts. If that was all it was, I'd go on suffering. I'm used to it by now, and I'm not stupid enough to think an eternity in servitude to Sanguine is going to be all orgasms and rose petals. It's not just that. It's _her_."

"The countess?"

"I mean Nocturnal. If Sanguine owns me, body and soul, then she can't touch me. And I'm damned if that bitch will ever use me ever again."

"So you'll let Sanguine use you instead?"

"Better the devil you know than the devil who's fucked you over from the shadows all your life. At least Sanguine had the good graces to tell me he was going to fuck me first." I grimaced. "I'd sooner sell myself to Molag fucking Bal than spend one more moment shrouded in her shadows. And given the choice I'd choose debauchery over rape every time." I took a breath and glanced at the door, wondered where Millona was at that moment, whether she was thinking about me and working her way to a decision. "But maybe it won't come to that."

"Let's hope." He seemed weary, defeated. I picked up the decanter, offered him a glass of wine.

"How's Sam?"

Armande flashed a grin and pressed his thumb against the table, grinding it in like a drill bit. _Under the thumb._ "And he's enjoying every minute of it. Rochelle Bantien's terrifying. She's exactly what he needed. She'll keep him on the straight and narrow. You ask me they should have employed her to replace Lex. If they had, the Thieves' Guild would already have been wiped out. And speaking of Lex, how can you bear to have that pompous buffoon around?"

"I've actually become quite fond of him. He's a likeable sort, once you get past the pompous exterior."

"If you say so."

"And he took care of Millona when I couldn't." My voice was a little too brittle. I looked away, and sensed rather than saw the sharp look Armande shot me. "I'm predisposed to like him for that alone."

~o~O~o~

I made my way to my rooms, every part of me knotted with pain and aching for a drink. At the doorway my vision wavered in and out of focus, and I stopped to rub at my eyes until the a haze of white that clouded my vision had cleared.

Inside there was movement, Millona rising to her feet.

I hesitated, assailed by the feeling that I had stepped sideways into a dream. Not a nightmare for once, but one of my most cherished memories – the night of my wedding. And then I blinked, and my vision sharpened a little further. It wasn't Millona as she'd been when I married her, but Millona now. A little older, but still lovely and very nearly as nervous as she'd been that night, smoothing her hands down over her skirt. From the expression on her face, I suspected that memory was playing in her mind as clearly as it was in mine.

"My Lady." I closed the door behind me. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Her gaze roamed around the room, lingered on the unopened bottle of wine gathering a thin layer of dust. I'd never been able to bring myself to dispose of it because I had a feeling that one night I'd wake up screaming with an all-consuming need to blunt my terror and pain. I'd woken up screaming quite a few times, but so far that bottle had remained untouched.

"I feel as though I should offer you a drink, Corvus," she said, "but it seems a little inappropriate given this is your chamber."

"Would you care for a drink, My Lady?"

She hesitated, her gaze flitting to the doorway. I moved out of her way, and crossed to the sideboard, heat in my cheeks. I was certain this was it, that she'd come to tell me it was over. That she had thought things through and decided it would be for the best if I left and never came back. Why else would she have come here, to the only space in the castle that was mine and mine alone?

Her barely audible footsteps whispered on the floorboards as I wiped the bottle of dust and uncapped it. She'd moved closer, and accepted the glass I handed her. "Aren't you going to join me?"

I shook my head. "I've drunk enough." As if that was true. As if that could ever be true.

"You know, you've said that to me before."

"I know."

She took a sip. Drew a breath. "I'm remembering, Corvus."

"You mean... our wedding or..."

"I mean everything. The past ten years."

My mouth went dry. I flicked my gaze towards the wine, but poured myself a glass of water from the ewer instead. "And what exactly are you remembering?"

"You, mainly." She said it softly, her voice quiet and sad. I glanced at her and found her watching me across the vast gulf of the space between us. For the first time since our argument in the library, I felt the first spark of hope. "You were there. So often, throughout my memories, and I didn't even... I didn't even realise."

"Not as often as I would have liked. I had other business..."

A flash of the old anger flickered in her eyes, but she was almost as tired as I was, and it was impossible to sustain. "With the Thieves' Guild."

I nodded. There didn't seem much point in lying about it. "That and training with the Moth Priests, but mainly the guild, I must admit. I broke my vow to you, Millona, and I'm truly sorry for that. It seemed the lesser evil." There'd been a great deal of that throughout my life. "But every other minute I could I was here."

"It must have..." Her voice caught. I glanced at her. She was turned away, so I couldn't see her eyes. "It must have been very hard for you."

It had broken my heart. Every day. And every day I'd piece it back together overnight only for it to be shattered again the next morning. My heart had been so thoroughly broken, I could still feel the cracks threading through me.

"Not nearly so hard as it was for you. At least I knew what was going on." I took the empty glass from her. "I'll never forgive myself for doing that to you as long as I live."

"Corvus..."

"And I need you to know that whatever your decision, I understand." I was talking to fill the silence, to stop her from breaking it herself and shattering me one last time, a break from which I'd never recover.

"Why did you leave?" she asked.

"I was tricked. Not that that's any excuse, I know, but–" I broke off. She'd rested her hand on my arm, at the edge of my sleeve, and I could feel her fingers warm against my wrist. I felt the urge to turn my hand, to grip hold of hers and never ever let go.

"Just tell me, Corvus. Please."

"It was my predecessor. He–" I closed my eyes and concentrated. " _She_ came to me with a matter I couldn't ignore." I looked at her. "She'd found my mother."

Her eyes widened with excitement. "By the Nine. You found your family, but–"

I shook my head in a sudden hard ugly flare of panic. Because this wasn't something I could face. Not now. I'd have to deal with it sometime or other, but I was damned if that time was going to be now. "Please, don't, Millona. I can't..."

Her excitement was already vanishing, in her eyes something that verged on sorrow. "It wasn't what you were hoping for?"

I gave a choked humourless laugh. "No. Not even remotely. It was... well, it was bad, let's put it like that, but I didn't realise quite how massively fucked up it was until it was too late. My predecessor was... injured, and as a result..."

"The curse transferred to you."

I nodded. "I think it was inevitable, in a way. I've always had an affinity for shadows, and apparently shadows have always had an affinity for me. If I hadn't gone with her, it would have happened another way. Nocturnal would have found another way to make it work."

"Why? And why you?"

"I don't know. Not for certain. But I think she wanted the curse broken, and there was only one person wild and fuck-stupid enough to do something as borderline insane as..." I trailed off, glancing at her. "...as arranging for the theft of an Elder Scroll." I fought to modulate my voice, but didn't quite succeed.

She gave me a sharp little glance. "You're actually proud of it, aren't you?" she said.

I hesitated, but there seemed little point in denying it. "It's the theft of the Era. No one's ever pulled anything like that off before."

"Can I see it?"

I hesitated, then nodded, and pushed myself up. She hovered as I drew out the case holding the Elder Scroll and unlatched it. An aching pressure built up behind my eyes and burst with a piercing stab of pain and a shivering echo of the void the damned thing had opened up inside me. Millona drew in a sharp breath at the sight of it and reached out to touch the carved scroll frame. I caught hold of her wrist gently. "It's dangerous, Millona."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Armande's going to take it to the Temple of the Ancestor Moths for me, along with the scrying stone. They'll both be safe there until the Scroll can be transferred back to the White-Gold Tower."

"Hardly the heist of the era if you're only going to give it back."

My grip softened around her wrist, my thumb pressing into the hollow of her palm. "I was only ever borrowing it," I said, and her gaze lifted to mine.

"Corvus, I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"No, I do. I blamed you and it was unfair of me. How you must have suffered this past decade, and all I could think of was my own pain and anger. I knew what sort of man you were when I married you." She drew a breath. "And I've made my decision."

I couldn't look at her. Fear coiled through me like smoke. My lips tightened in an expression that was closer to a bitter grimace than a smile. About all I could manage these days. "About bloody time."

"I want you to stay."

A breath sharp gusting out. It felt like she'd just punched me in the solar plexus. A stark and terrifying hope surged through me, almost uncontrollably. I forced it down, my blood rushing in my ears, as I froze, waiting for the inevitable "–but you can't," to be tacked on. It never came. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out for a long few moments.

"Millona..." I pressed a hand to my mouth, and a sound escaped, a choked-up sob. "Are you certain?"

"I'm tired of being lonely. I'm tired of an empty bed. I want my husband back."

"I..." I was crying now, certain that I was hallucinating, hearing only what I wanted to hear. "Are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want? Because if it isn't, if you..."

She wasn't smiling; her face was grave. "I'm not saying it'll be easy. I'm not even sure if we can, Corvus, after everything that's happened. I don't even know where to start, but I do know that I want to at least try."

And slowly, realising I was still holding her hand, I drew it to my mouth and pressed my lips first to the back of her knuckles and then into the hollow of her palm. "We start by taking it slowly," I said, my voice as shaky as hers. "One step at a time."

She reached up and unbound her hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders. I combed my fingers through it, smoothing it out. The candlelight burnished it, and in that moment I saw more clearly than I had in weeks. Every detail was fresh and crisp: the determined press of her lips, the threads of silver that threaded her hair at the temples.

She pressed my palm to her cheek, and tilted her head up. I bent towards her. And there I hesitated, because to kiss her seemed a step too far. Something I didn't deserve.

Had Armande spoken to her after all? Had he told her what I planned to do if she rejected me? Had she forced herself to come here out of obligation rather than genuine desire?

But her eyes lingered on mine and the kiss was sweet and careful, and it felt like returning home after too long away. I could taste the wine on her lips, and underneath the taste of her. And despite my vow that we'd take it slow, the kiss deepened quickly, because both of us were hungry; both of us had been alone for too long.

She broke off the kiss. My heart beat a little too hard, enough to make me feel light-headed. I whispered her name and it felt like a prayer.

"One step at a time," she said, her voice a little strained.

"Exactly." I swallowed and forced my breathing a little slower, trying not to think about how badly I wanted to press her down into the bed and reacquaint myself with every inch of her body. "We'll take as much time as you want. As much time as you need. It's probably for the best, taking it slowly, I mean..." I stroked her hair, the ache deep in the joints of my fingers long forgotten. "Gods, you're lovely. You're the loveliest woman I've ever seen. You always were."

"Corvus?"

"Mmm?"

She took a breath and cupped my cheeks. "I think I'm ready for the second step now."


	36. Chapter 36

**Epilogue**

So then it's done. The last few words written on a piece of parchment. The ink blots, leaving an ugly puddle smeared across the parchment. Enough ink to drown in. The tips of my fingers and the blade of my writing hand are stained with it. In the dying light, a man might mistake it for blood.

I place my hand atop the manuscript and think of burning it. Of taking the whole lot and throwing it straight into the fire. It might be better that way.

The candle gutters. Darkness swarms across my vision like a flock of ravens. I close my tired eyes, rub at them in the hope my vision clears. Usually this works, but less and less quickly these days.

My own fault.

I work too late into the night, snatching what sleep I can. There are nights when I don't go to bed at all, because the journey from my private chambers to Millona's seems insurmountable and I cannot bear my only alternative: returning to an empty bed. I'd rather not sleep at all.

I knew the price I'd pay, the price the Elder Scroll would almost certainly exact. Moth Priests study for decades to learn the art of reading the Scrolls, and still blindness is inevitable.

I paid that price, and willingly. I would have paid it a thousandfold for my freedom and to have my family back.

I drop my hands and I'm still blind, my world one of pitch darkness. I rub at my eyes again, then turned my head towards the candle. There I see the faintest glint of light through the shadows.

Not blind. Not yet, thank the gods. I'm not ready. I haven't spent nearly enough time committing every detail of Millona's face and body to memory.

"Corvus?"

Millona's soft voice makes me start. My hand knocks against the glass of water and upsets it. I curse and make a grab for it, fumble across the table, trying to make it look like I'm only clumsy from lack of sleep, and not like a man who's going blind. Still, even after everything, my first instinct is to lie.

"You startled me."

"Sorry."

"How long were you there?" I asked, smiling. My voice is as casual as I can make it.

She doesn't answer, and in her silence lies her reply: long enough. She approaches and rights the glass. My vision is clearing already. I can see her now, and my relief intensifies with every sharpening detail. Her face, although blurred, is still lovely, and, in supplication, I turn my face towards her, like a plant following the sun. She slides between my legs, and kisses my forehead. "How bad is it?"

I sighed. Useless to think I could ever deceive her for long. "It comes and goes. Usually it's not too bad..."

"Is it getting worse?"

I was about to lie. I held it ready on the tip of my tongue, the lie that wasn't exactly a lie, just the truth reframed. But she'd been watching me. "Yes."

She nodded slowly and caught hold of my hand. "Come to bed. It's late."

"I didn't want to wake you."

"These days what wakes me is an empty bed."

She says it lightly, but there's a audible depth of pain in her voice. I let her take my hand and pull me up, and then it's easy to slip my arm around her waist, sliding my hand over the silk of her robe. Her hair is loosely plaited for bed, and I think, as I let her lead me to her chamber, that I'll soon have that unbound and kiss away the pain as best I can.

"It's finished," I say. "My tale."

Which isn't exactly true.

I am starting to realise that it will never be finished. I'd touched on her story – the Fox who preceded me – but the truth was I'd barely scratched the surface, and before her there were many others, all with their own stories to tell. I could write non-stop for ten years and never tell them all.

Her name was Julia Juranius. She was Imperial, a Heartlander, born in Weye to a wealthy family. Her father's father had indeed made their fortunes in the wine trade, but her father was a profligate wastrel and he wasted much of his inheritance on gambling and bad investments. Still, she grew up wealthy. I'd been right about that.

I'll never know the truth of how she came to join the Dark Brotherhood – the why's and the hows. I could keep looking, but I'm wary of prodding too hard into that nest of vipers, and the truth is it doesn't matter. What matters is why she left, and why she spent the rest of her life hiding from them. It's in their tenets: their hollow god-thing doesn't look too kindly on those who, rather than killing their contracts, fall in love with them instead. And this contract was a powerful man, who'd already made up his mind to destroy the Dark Brotherhood and wipe it from the face of Cyrodiil. He paid the price for that.

He was a good man. Lex talks about him sometimes, after I've managed to get an ale or two down his neck and he's loosened up as much as a man like Lex can ever loosen up. Lex will always be a serious sort, and he still feels awkward around me, even if his lingering feelings for Millona have ebbed. There's a warrior in the Fighters Guild he's got his eye on, and she cannot be entirely oblivious to his feelings since he blushes and stammers every time he sees her. I'll work on that as I work on him. In the absence of Armande and Min and with Brey back in the Imperial City mopping up the mess in the Mages' Guild, Lex is the closest thing I have to a friend in Anvil. I drink my spiced milk and try not to think about how much I want a bottle of ale instead.

They never quite saw eye to eye when Lex was in the Imperial City, but Adamus Phillida had his own reasons for wanting to protect the Thieves' Guild. Some lingering memory of his mistress, or Nocturnal's influence? Something else I'll never know. Lex respected him though, and mourns him deeply.

This is Julia's story as much as it is my own. It shames me how I've written about her, but as much as I have wanted to gloss over the details and conceal whatever it was between us – messy and passionate and ugly and loveless – lying about it feels wrong. And so I have set it down as best as I can remember, and I beg your forgiveness for that, my love.

This is for you, Millona. This whole blasted tale has been for you.

I promised you once I'd tell you the truth, and this is as close as I think I can get, even if throughout I have had to pretend I am writing for a stranger. Even if I am terrified of how you will react when you read it. Even though I fear it will destroy our shaky reconciliation beyond repair.

In bed you shift against me, murmur in protest as my hand slides over your tender breasts. I murmur an apology into the curve of your shoulder, into skin which tastes of sweat and the salt-brine tang of the sea air. And down my hand slides to the swell of your belly, and a gnawing fear grows in my heart.

I never told you this but when my champion first brought me the Elder Scroll, I didn't come straight to Anvil. Instead I rode as fast as I could to Nocturnal's shrine near Leyawiin, changing horses at every Waystation and avoiding Oblivion gates along the way.

(I was lucky. The only incident was an encounter with a bandit inexplicably dressed in glass armour and wielding a daedric battleaxe too heavy for him to use.)

Already then the situation was ugly, with public tolerance for daedra worshipping heretics as threadbare as a corpse-shroud. The worshippers were suspicious of strangers, but I was a shadow and they let me try to commune with her. She didn't speak to me, but I think she watched me, and the weight of the Elder Scroll on my back grew heavier with every passing moment. Behind me, ravens and crows and rooks crowded the branches of a tree, and their cawing sounded like laughter.

She let me go.

I wasn't sure then, but I am certain now. She let me leave. But more than that: I cannot shake the lingering suspicion that this is what she'd planned for me all alone. Perhaps it goes back even further than that, to Emer Dareloth himself. The first Gray Fox, the one whose shadows we have all been, and a master thief in the truest sense of the world. It's arguable which is the greatest feat, to steal an Elder Scroll from the White-Gold Tower or to steal from a Daedric Lord, but while I stole only to save myself, he did it for the sheer joy of it. He stole for no other reason than because he _could_.

If he was to appear now in front of me I'm not sure if I'd buy him a drink or punch him in the face.

The trick to manipulating a man is to offer him what he wants most in his heart. To be a master thief and pull off the greatest heist in history. To be loved, to have a wife, a family. To cradle your child in your arms.

Eight months along, and the world has changed. The changes are staggering, almost beyond belief. The end of the Septim bloodline. The implosion of the Mages' Guild. The mess in Morrowind after the recall of the Legions. It's revealed an ugly face of the Empire, showing that our protection is only extended until the Heartland is at risk, and then we find out what really matters. I've barely noticed, and I know I should have. I have been lost in this story, as I was once lost in shadows.

I wasn't expecting the people of Anvil to be so ready to forgive me. Plenty of vile lies have been spoken about me, and much that wasn't lies at all, but never from the people of Anvil. It's almost as if they know the truth of it. Perhaps it's because they love you so dearly and cannot fathom that anyone could feel differently. Regardless, I'm grateful to them for accepting me back. It wouldn't matter if they hadn't, but I know how much harder it would have made things for you if they took against me.

This is all I ever wanted, Millona, to be at your side. To be as good a husband as I can ever be, given the circumstances. To lie behind you, with my hand on your belly, feeling our child kick so fiercely your entire belly lists to one side like a ship beached on hidden shoals.

If you decide, after reading this history, that you would prefer to cast me off, at least I'll have given you a child. I know it's not nearly enough to make up for everything I've done, but it's something at least. I think of all the children we have lost, the ones who never had a chance, and I'll never know if that was simply chance or the sign that I was being manipulated even back then. I was afraid at first, in case this one would go the way of all the others, but you never were.

And here's the truth of it: I too believe this child will be brought to term. Martin if it's a boy, of course – there will be a plague of Martins on this province over the coming years – and, if it's a girl, after my thief who delivered me from my curse.

But there are the other times, when I place my hand on your belly and can't breathe for the rising mass of fear billowing up inside me. When the pulsing of my blood in my ears sounds like the beating of wings. When all I can see are shadows and the shrine of Nocturnal, that bitch who's twisted and manipulated my life as far back as I can remember.

And I think that maybe this was what she wanted all along. Not me. Not the arrogant selfish thieving little shit who always assumed the world revolved around him, but the child growing in your belly.

I see many things a great deal clearly now. Ironic really, given that I'm going blind.

I may be wrong. I pray to all the gods I am.

But this I swear: I will do my damndest to protect you. You and our child and any children that follow. I love you, Millona, more than the world. You are my heart and my lodestar.

When I was lost, it was you who guided me home.


End file.
